History of Natural Remedies in Europe

NATURAL REMEDIES IN EUROPE

In ancient times, natural remedies were more often associated with religion than with established science. Medical professionals, or at least those who were called that in ancient Egypt, China, India, Greece and Rome, used their versions of various laboratories in which they tested different natural remedies and their benefits. Many of these drinks, powders and creams did not actually work, while some were even dangerous to health. However, many contained beneficial ingredients that we still use today in modern natural medicine. Medicinal plants have been found in many archaeological excavations. 400 years BC, the ancient Greeks began to develop this particular branch of medicine. Hippocrates, the father of Western medicine, believed in four basic types of body fluids and maintaining health through their proper balance. He relied on plants such as rosemary, fennel and saffron, and combined them with exercise, massages and other forms of therapy to treat various diseases.

Roman physicians took over the knowledge from the Greeks. Before Roman soldiers went into battle, doctors smeared their feet with garlic oil to strengthen their immune systems in case of injuries and believed that it would allow them to heal faster. One prominent medical expert at that time was the already mentioned Dioscorides, Pedanias (Greek: Πεδάνıος Δıοσκουρίδης, Pedánios Dioskourídēs, lat. Pedanius Dioscorides), Greek physician in the military service of the Roman army.

His large encyclopaedia of pharmacology on medicinal substances (Περì ὕλης ἰατρıκῆς – De materia medica) has been preserved, which in five books includes the overall ancient knowledge of pharmacology and applied botany (description and classification of several hundred medicinal plants). The first medicinal plant mentioned by Dioscorides in his encyclopedia was the Illyrian iris, an iris. The Roman Empire lasted from 500 BC to 476. Some writings even speak of 1500 years of existence. During the wars and conquests of the Roman Empire, knowledge about natural remedies was often brought to Europe. The fall of Rome was an event that marked the end of the Empire and the beginning of the Middle Ages. At the time of the fall of the Roman Empire, the system of natural healing had a large and solid foundation throughout Europe.

In the medieval period, European medical practice became more aggressive and invasive. Doctors have come to rely on laxatives to treat most diseases, and this strategy has likely killed more patients than helped them recover. What is worse, these doctors began to attack local healers who used natural remedies and tried in every way to discredit them. Women who practiced natural remedies were often associated with witches. They were persecuted and burned.

One 15th-century physician, Paracelsus, was so appalled by the state of medical practice that he devoted his career to natural remedies. He not only studied European natural remedies, but also made sure to get to know the workings of Middle Eastern natural remedies. He learned which plants help cure diseases and taught other doctors which foods and medicinal plants contain substances that could be absorbed and have a positive effect on health. Paracelsus was wrong about everything. He believed that the shape of a plant could decide which part of the body could be cured, but he was a strong, persuasive voice that brought attention back to herbal remedies at the time.

Since the time of Paracelsus, European medicine has become a battleground between the holistic philosophy of herbalism and an increasingly mechanized view of the body. As Europeans began to explore and colonize other continents, they also received more and more information about natural remedies from these continents, especially North and South America. Natural remedies were used there for hundreds of years before European colonization. For a long time, natural remedies have been used based on trial and error, superstition, and strange ideas about how our bodies work. During the 16th and 17th centuries, people in Europe began to use opium, the milky sap from the poppy plant, to treat pain.

Laudanum was a mixture of opium, alcohol and herbs that helped with pain, insomnia, cough and diarrhea. Since a large number of serious diseases were rampant in Europe at that time (with very few effective drugs), laudanum was used to treat almost everything, from colds to black plague! Over the next 150 years, scientists learned more about chemistry and biology. The first modern pharmaceutical medicine was invented in 1804 by Friedrich Wilhelm Adam Sertürner (1783–1841), a German pharmacist and pioneer of alkaloid chemistry. He is best known for the discovery of morphine, which he isolated from opium in 1804. He named the isolated alkaloid “morphine” after the Greek god of dreams, Morpheus. He published an extensive paper on its isolation, crystallization, crystal structure and pharmacological properties, which he studied first in stray dogs and then in experiments on himself. Morphine was not only the first alkaloid to be extracted from opium, but also the first alkaloid isolated from any plant. Thus, Sertürner became the first person to isolate the active ingredient associated with the medicinal plant. The branch of science he created has since become known as alkaloid chemistry. And that’s how modern medicine began.

THE DISCOVERY OF CHINA

1820. Quinine was discovered. The discovery of quinine is considered a great medical discovery and was used to treat malaria. Quinine is a component of the bark of the cinchona tree (quina-quina). This tree is also called “Jesuit bark”, “cardinal’s bark” or “sacred bark”. These names derive from its use in 1630 among Jesuit missionaries in South America, although legend suggests an earlier use among the indigenous population. According to this legend, an Indian with a high fever got lost in the Andean jungle. Thirsty, he drank stale water and found that it tasted bitter. Realizing that the water was contaminated with the surrounding quina-quine trees, he thought he was poisoned. Surprisingly, his fever soon subsided, and he shared this accidental discovery with his fellow villagers, who subsequently used extracts from the quinaquina bark to treat fever. The legend of the discovery of quinine accepted in Europe differs however and involves the Spanish Countess of Chinchon who, while in Peru, contracted a fever that was cured by the bark of a tree. Returning to Spain with the bark, she introduced quinine to Europe in 1638, and in 1742 the botanist Carl Linnaeus named the tree “Cinchona” in her honor. Before 1820, the bark of this tree was first dried, crushed into a fine powder, and then mixed with a liquid (usually wine) before being drunk. In 1820, quinine was extracted from the bark. This discovery belongs to scientists Pierre Joseph Pelletier and Joseph Caventou.

Paracetamol was invented in 1877, and in the 1890s, scientists made aspirin from willow bark for the first time. We still use them to treat headaches, fevers, and inflammation. The first antibiotic, penicillin, was accidentally discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928. age. Since then, thousands of new drugs have been made in laboratories. By the middle of the twentieth century, the development of synthetic “miracle drugs” by pharmacological companies had almost completely supplanted herbal medicines. Scientists have learned how to isolate the active ingredients of plants and put them in drugs such as morphine and aspirin. Today, we are witnessing that natural remedies are practically not taught in any medical school or college. What is worse, natural treatment is ridiculed among highly educated medical staff and declared bad, ineffective and untested.

From my personal experience, I say that this is a great pity. Unfortunately, we are not sufficiently educated about the possibilities and power of natural remedies. Of course, we don’t know anything about it when we don’t even learn about it. I know very well, when we combine the best medical methods (those that have no side effects) with a healthy lifestyle and the best natural remedies, we provide our patients with the perfect treatment. However, in practice, the situation is completely different. With great certainty, after 25 years of working with patients, I claim that there is nothing better for someone’s condition than a healthy lifestyle and the use of natural remedies, which are used to prevent diseases. Keep in mind that 80% of the world’s population relies on plants as their primary form of medicine. Many cultures use natural healing as the first line to prevent disease. In hospitals in China, for example, doctors specialize in herbal medicine in different categories (cardiology, dermatology). It is remarkable that in the last few decades, many scientists, medical experts from all over the world have dedicated their work to studying and proving the miraculous powers of natural remedies.