Herbal Medicine - Phytotherapy

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Herbal Medicine

— Phytotherapy

Hygienic Review

Vol. XXXIX August, 1978 No.12

Herbal Medicine — Phytotherapy

Herbert M. Shelton

The worst type of blindness is intellectual blindness—"There are none

so blind as those who can see and won't." Modern man likes to think of

himself as "enlightened" despite the fact that his intellectual

equipment contains a preponderant admixture of ancient errors and

superstitions. The survival in modern times, of the ancient herbal

practice is a case in point. Here we have an ancient method of treating

the sick that has as its sole claim to superior merit, the fact that it

is less lethal in its effects than the virulent poisons employed by the

modern physician. The two superstitions are of a piece and it is not to

be forgotten that "modern medicine" is a direct outgrowth of the

ancient herbal practice. The physician regards his present practice as

an improvement on the ancient practice; the herbalist or "natural

therapist" looks upon "modern medicine" as a perversion and departure

from what he likes to think of as the "natural cure." It is difficult

to differentiate between the two superstitions.

Herbalists attempt to rationalize their herbal practices by discussing

their use in the light of modern nutritional science. As an example of

this, one writer on "natural therapeutics" says that, "as an aid to the

natural cure, some positively beneficial herbs and herbal juices may be

used. These should be such as are locally available and of such nature

as to make up for the known deficiencies of the sick—the various

organic minerals and vitamins. These are not strictly medicines; they

must be considered as part of the curative diet." If the herbs so used

are nonpoisonous, they are true foods; but it will be observed by the

student of these practices, that nonpoisonous herbs do not give rise to

the alleged physiological actions that they seek to produce. Only

poisonous herbs are considered "medicinal."

I frequently find the herbal practice designated a "Nature Cure

method." That herbs, all of them, the nonpoisonous as well as the

poisonous ones, are natural is true. But they are no more natural than

mercury and arsenic. All that is, is natural. The bite of a rattlesnake

or the sting of the nettle are both natural. The venom of the cobra is

as natural as the opium of the poppy. A stroke of lightning is as

natural as the digitalis of foxglove. The eruption of a volcano with

its poisonous gases, is as natural as the prussic acid of the bitter

almond. The cyclone and tidal wave are as natural as the nicotine of

tobacco. That a thing is natural does not mean that it has any normal

relationship to the living organism. It does not belong in the human

body merely because it is natural. The various molds from which the

antibiotics are derived are as natural as any herb that grows. It is

objected that the medical man does not use the whole herb, but extracts

of the herb, I reply that the herbalist uses teas, infusions, extracted

juices, and in other ways, employs, not the whole herb, but extracts of

it. But I deny that his use of the whole herb is any more rational than

his use of infusions and juices made from the herb.

One could easily get the idea, after listening to the fulsome eulogy

lavished upon aloe by certain of the herbalists, that, this plant is

some kind of king or queen of the plant world and a real wonder drug

among the medicinal herbs. A genus of plants of the lily family, of

which there are several species, the dried juices of the leaves of

several of these species provides the herbalist and the physician with

a laxative. An aloetic is defined as "a medicine containing aloes."

Time was, and this was in the not distant past, when aloetic pills were

very popular and were prescribed by physicians in a variety of

so-called diseases. It is difficult to understand why so much praise is

lavished on this "laxative" herb. Any other laxative would do as much

mischief, indeed, some of the more poisonous herbs are purgatives and

drastics.

Some of the self-styled "natural therapists" never tire of extolling

the virtues of the simple "home remedies," by which they mean herbs,

that were employed in the past, and which they tell us were "harmless."

The so-called "medicinal" herbs were not harmless. Many of them, on the

contrary, can be deadly, as deadly as any drug the physicians now use.

None of them removed the cause of the patient's trouble; all * of them

were directed at the suppression of symptoms; all of them gave rise to

evils of their own. The herbal practice was the original drugging

practice and only those drugs were used that occasioned marked

defensive actions on the part of the body. They were given to produce

vomiting, purging, diuresis, diaphoresis and expectoration, to reduce

fever, relieve pain, allay coughing, to produce blistering, as

sedatives, stimulants, narcotics, etc., etc. They are still employed

for the same purposes, despite all the loose talk about their alleged

richness in minerals and vitamins. Few of them have ever been analyzed

to determine their mineral and vitamin content. That they are possessed

of these food factors, as all plants are, is not denied; that they are

superior sources of such nutrients has not been proved. Certainly a

drug that induces vomiting and one that occasions purging does not

yield up any minerals and vitamins to the sick organism.

The sick organism is suffering from poisoning, not from deficiency.

Deficiencies do exist, but the so-called deficiency diseases are not

numerous. The acutely sick patient is as unable to digest and

assimilate medicinal herbs as he is to digest and assimilate the

nonpoisonous herbs. The presence of poisons in herbs renders their

digestion all but impossible. Imagine trying to digest a salad of fresh

green tobacco leaves!

I have taken the following examples of the "medicinal" use of herbs

from but one issue of a magazine devoted to what its editor and

publisher and its contributors all agree in calling "Nature Cure" and

"Natural Therapeutics." Were I to take time to go through several

issues of this same journal or to go through several issues of several

similar journals and take out the great wealth of similar examples that

could easily be collected I could fill a book with them. The few that I

have offered here, however, will be enough to reveal to the reader that

the herbal practice is not a nutritional program but a drugging

practice. Herbs are used to suppress symptoms and not as a means of

supplying nutritive deficiencies. The fact is, as every student of the

subject is well aware, that the herbal practice antedates our knowledge

of nutritional deficiencies by several hundreds of years and grew, not

out of any effort to supply the nutritive needs of the body, but out of

the assumed necessity of driving evil spirits out of the sick. Under

the spell of this ancient etiology, the more of nausea, griping,

purging and convulsions a drug occasioned the more effective was it

supposed to be in exorcising the malignant imp that had taken up

housekeeping in the body of the sick. Spikenard may serve as our first

example of the way in which herbs are used as nutritive substances.

This herb is described as a "good stimulant, digestant, carminative,

diuretic, expectorant, and a good antispasmodic and nervous tonic in

hysteria, chorea, convulsions and epilepsy." In India this herb is said

to be good in "leprosy, old fever, internal heat, diarrhea, diseases of

the eye, asthma, dyspnoea or difficulty of breathing, rheumatism."

Penicillin will have to move over and make room for a new wonder drug.

All the "therapeutic" classes into which this drug falls, prove it to

be poisonous. Certainly none of these alleged "medicinal" qualities

have anything to do with nutrition. Like all herbal "medication," the

use of this herb is purely symptomatic. Not only is the use designed to

"treat the symptoms as they arise," but its use is on the allopathic

principle. As an antispasmodic it is used to suppress spasm, not to

remove cause.

After talking of the vitamins and minerals in herbs, they offer us

pastes made from herbs that are applied externally. It is a

carminative. It is a good rubefacient "linament." If all this has

anything to do with nutrition, I fail to understand the relationship.

Of another plant we read that "the leaves are astringent, detergent and

deodorant. The flower is refrigerant and soporific. The seed is

deodorant. The bark is astringent." What have vitamins and minerals to

do with all these effects?

Here is another herb of which it is said: "its nutritional value is

very little." But it is declared to be a "beneficial stomachic. It aids

digestion . It is given even to feverish patients." It is said to be

useful in asthma, bronchitis, consumption, fever, dullness of digestive

fire, rheumatism, paralysis, etc. It is an expectorant, diuretic, and

carminative. Its seed is a drastic purgative." Its alleged therapeutic

actions are evidences of its poisonous character.

Here is another herb that is said to be "cathartic, anthelmintic,

aphrodisiac, lithontriptic." It is useful in "tapeworm, chronic skin

disease and hookworm." It is said to kill the tapeworm. Another herb is

described as a "good purgative" and causes small thread worms to "come

out." Here is another herb that is described as "sedative" in its

effect and is advised in cases of irritation in the digestive tract. It

is said to form a coating between the lining of the intestines and the

food and feces, thus protecting the surface of the stomach and

intestine from irritation. Here is another herb that is described as "a

mild astringent, refrigerant, diuretic, demulcent and emollient." It is

taken internally and applied externally. It is "useful" in a wide

variety of diseases, ranging all the way from headache (in this

complaint it is applied to the forehead so that the minerals and

vitamins may be absorbed through the cranium, I suppose), biliousness,

dysentery, scalds, burns and skin diseases, to "syphilis." Certainly

this herb should be kept in every "medicine" cabinet in the land. It is

almost as "good" as penicillin.

A self-styled "natural therapist" who uses and advocates a great medley

of herbs, many of them highly poisonous, so far forgets the basic

tenets of his herbal practice as to parrot (repeat without

understanding) the Hygienic principle that people are sick because of

their errors in living and that they can escape from their ills only by

correcting their ways of life. He goes so far as to repeat the Hygienic

teaching that responsibility for disease rests squarely upon the

shoulders of the sick and suffering and that responsibility for

recovery rests upon the same shoulders. After he has repeated these

Hygienic teachings, he offers his readers a great array of herbal

"remedies." Can he give herbs to stop sexual excesses and abuses; will

herbs correct gluttony; will they cause the patient to control his

emotional life or to secure more sleep; will they render white bread

adequate or make unclean living safe? What have herbs to do with right

and wrong living? He speaks of the necessity for making "amends for

past transgressions." Perhaps the herbal "remedies" will make amends.

Too many of the "natural therapists" are trying the impossible task of

riding two horses at once, the horses going in opposite directions. The

mental gymnastics and logical somersaults that they perform in trying

to reconcile their two opposite courses of action fill all rings of a

five ring circus. But their antics are neither amusing nor

entertaining. To be intelligent and informed, these things are

saddening. Here we have a large group of men, represented in almost all

parts of the world, who have hibernated in antiquity and who seem

unable to free themselves from fallacies that were born in the fecund

brain of the ancient shaman. Physically, they live in the second half

of the twentieth century; intellectually they are with the cave man.

Herbert M. Shelton

-- Peace be with you,

Don "Quai" Eitner

"Spirit sleeps in the mineral, breathes in the vegetable, dreams in the animal and wakes in man."

Nearly all men die of their remedies, and not of their illnesses. ~Baptiste Molière, Le Malade Imaginaire

The obstacle is the path. ~Zen Proverb