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Services:
Read here about the array of therapies we offer and how they work for various disorders.
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Western
Herbal Medicine
A Very
Brief History
The use of herbs in the western hemisphere
stretches back into antiquity well into the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age era,
circa 40,000 BCE. The beginnings of
organized study of herbal therapeutics in the West are in the ancient
Mesopotamian, Eygptian and later Greek civilizations. By 3000 BCE the Eygptians
and Sumerians had written traditions of systematic herbal use, and by 400 BCE there were numerous medical schools in Greece practicing various forms of
natural medicine, including herbology, cupping, and progressive open air
sanitoriums for the mentally ill.
The Hippocratic
Corpus (the text from which the modern M.D.’s Hippocratic Oath is derived) listed
hundred of medicinal herbs around 400BCE, and by 50BCE Dioscoredes had
published a multi-volumed text called De
Materia Medica which described in detail the use of hundreds of
herbs of his day. During this time surgery also came into prominence; the great
herbal physician Galen was also surgeon to the gladiators in Rome (158
CE). With the rise of the Roman
Catholic Church and the destruction of Rome by European Barbarians, medicine,
herbal and otherwise, fell into decline. The official doctrine of the church
was that disease was due to sin; prayer, not the power of natural forces like
the extract of plants, was the answer. We now know both are good medicine.
Medicine in Europe was suppresed during the
middle ages, and the knowledge of the Greeks would have been lost, had it not
been for the flourishing civilization of the Arab Meditaerranean where Christian, Jewish and Muslim doctors
translated the Greek classics into Arabic and then Latin between the 9th
and 12th centuries. These classics made their way into the first
medical schools in medieval Europe, founded in Italy, under Muslim Arab
influence.
In modern times, after the scientific
revolution of the 19th and 20th centuries, England and
Germany have had the strongest traditions of Herbal Medicine use. In 1652
Culpepper’s Herbal had been published in England, and in France
and Germany, in reaction to the health disasters bred by industrialization,
traditions of Naturopathy or natural living were developing along national
lines. At the same time, numerous new herbs had been brought to Europe from the
new world. Some of them, like Quinine,
from Peru, used for malaria, had
the status of miracle drugs, as they had the power to cure previously
untreatable diseases. This led to a renewed interest in herbal medicine that
flourished during the Renaissance alongside the development of western science
and its medicine.
Today, Germany has the most developed system
of herbal use. The German Komission E, similar
to the U.S.’s FDA, has scientifically evaluated and validated over 500 herbs
for use by western trained M.D.’s and reembursible under the national
insurance. Many of the most popular western herbs today, like St. John’s Wort,
for example, are popular because they have been used in England, France and
Germany by M.D.’s over the past 25 years. In Germany, St John’s Wort is used
much more frequently than Prozac, Zoloft, or Paxil for depression and anxiety,
for example.
Clinical
Application
Western Herbal tradition uses herbs from all
6 inhabited continents, but in modern times, often uses the herbs for their
simple empirical value. That is to say, St. John’s Wort treats depression, so St. John’s Wort is given to everyone with
depression at a standard dose determined by health experts or the German
Komission E. St. John’s Wort is not combined with other herbs and there is no
differentiation of syndromes or pattern of disharmony as in Chinese Medicine.
While this can be effective sometimes, a much
more sophisticated use of Western herbs occurs when the herbs are combined into
formulas, and attention is paid to the constitution of the patient.
When I use St. John’s Wort for depression,
for example, I often use it in conjuction with Gotu Kola, an Indian herb that
soothes and energizes the nervous system, Gingko Biloba leaf, a Chinese herb
now used for mental alertness, Skullcap, Yarrow, Camomille and Peppermint, four
herbs that in combination relieve irritibility, anger, and aid the digestion. I
have had great clinical results with this and other combinations of herbs with
St. John’s Wort. This is where clinical experience plays such an important role
in Western Herbolgy, where there is not the same elaborate written tradition,
complete with case studies, that we see in Chinese Medicine.
Some of the disorders I have treated very
succesfully with Western Herbal Medicine are
Emotional Psychological Disorders:
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Mania
- BiPolar Disorder
- Personality Disorders
Women’s Health Issues:
- PMS
- Menstrual Disorders
- Excessive Bleeding
- Bleeding between periods
- Pain with bleeding
- Menopausal Discomfort
- Yeast Infections
- Urinary Tract Infections
- Interstitial Cystitis
- Cysts and Fibroids
- Endometriosis
Internal Medicine:
- Insomnia
- Fatigue
- Allergies
- Asthma
- Sinusitis
- Colds, Flus
- Respiratory Viral and
Bacterial Infections
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Dermatology:
- Psoriasis
- Eczema
- Vitiligo
- Dermatitis
Immune Disorders:
- Rheumatoid Arthritis
- Lupus
- Fibromyalgia
Physical Medicine:
- Stroke Rehabilitation
- Trigeminal Neuralgia
- Bells Palsey
- Sports Injuries
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I use Western Herbs in their dried state as teas and also in both liquid extract and pill form. I use only very high quality herbal products from suppliers like In Harmony Herbs in San Diego for whole herbs and HerbPharm
and Phyto Pharmica for extracts and capsules.
For more information on Western Herbal Medicine, or to find out if they can be used to help your condition, please call me @619.296.7591, or email eyton@bodymindwellnesscenter.com
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