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What is Herbalism?
Herbalism is one of the oldest forms of medicine, which uses plants as remedies for aliments or to heal. Plants and herb locally grown are combined to create natural remedies. Many of the recipes have been handed down though generations and presents with a more holistic way of healing. Often these natural plants and herbs have the same effects of synthetically created drugs that come from traditional medicine but in most cases it does not have the unwanted side effects of the synthetic drug. Best of all they are usually far less expensive than their synthetic counterpart.
Plants are often used in everything from food and drink to making of clothing. For many years the quest for new plants, such as spices, fed the need for exploration. It lead to the discovery of the new world and it allowed the herbs that people use to expand outside their own environments. Anyone practicing herbal medicine has to have a great working knowledge of plants botany and their uses in conjunction with the human body. In fact, the pratictioner of heral medicine has to have a vast knowledge of not only chemistry but also biology, anatamy and pharmacology as well as pathology and psychology.
As one of the earliest forms of medicine, ancient Egyptians used herbal medicine and recorded may of their records on papyri. Included in the list are Cilantro, Juniper, Fennel and Thyme. Some of the other ancient forms which used the medicinal use of plants were the Indian system, Ayurveda, The Chinese and Native American as well as the European system of folklore. The oldest writtent evidence of the medicinal use of herbs was In China and India. Oddly those two systems are still in use today.
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