PHYTOTHERAPY

Phytotherapy (phyto is Greek for plant) is a form of herbal medicine and describes the use of whole plants - fresh or dried.

Remedies are prepared in liquid form as teas, lotions, oils, potions and compresses or ground-up and prescribed in the form of powders, capsules, or tablets.

- Drinking a soothing cup of linden tea is a form of phytotherapy; so are compresses of chamomile for a burning eye, or gargles of a sage infusion for a sore throat and for gum problems.

Phytotherapy is the oldest and most proven form of natural medicine. The medicine traditions of many of the indigenous peoples are speaking for themselves.

In Europe phytotherapy, or botanical or biological medicine as it is also called, has been popular since before the times of Paracelsus (1493-1541.

Many plant-based modalities found their roots in the European tradition; among them are homeopathy, homotoxicology, and many other lesser known healing forms using herbal remedies.

Among these lesser known botanical therapy forms is Spagyrik. It uses a very pure form of highly filtered plant mother tinctures and only minute amounts of alcohol.

Modern pharmacology also started from botanical medicine. For example, aconite and digitalis are toxic plants; yet, they were used in the production of some of the first effective prescription drugs for heart disease.

Even today, in its search for new breakthroughs in medicine, the pharmaceutical industry is keen on getting its hands on previously unknown herbs and plants that have a longstanding tradition in indigenous cultures.

This interest of the pharmaceutical industry helps in decoding the active constituents of these plants. Unfortunately, this also bears the danger of isolated ingredients being synthetically manufactured or being used out of context.

We know a similar problem with isolated herbal substances from traditional Chinese medicine where it has long been acknowledged that the action of one and the same plant part can be modified according to its pairing with other complementary or counteracting substances.

This very basic knowledge is rarely incorporated in western pharmacology and, unfortunately, is frequently also neglected in the production of many natural supplements and vitamin compounds. Such indiscriminate combinations and extrusions may explain unexpected side-effects or a lack of efficacy of many products.

At the Natural Medicine Centre we promote safe and gentle approaches from the wide field of botanical medicine, many of which overlap with the field of biochemical nutritional balancing.