If you want one honest answer to what traditional medicine has given the
world, it is this list. Each of these began as a plant used by people with no
chemistry at all, and each is now a medicine that saves lives.
- Aspirin — from willow bark, recorded in Sumerian and
Egyptian texts and by Hippocrates. Salicin was isolated in 1828; Bayer
produced acetylsalicylic acid in 1897.
- Quinine — from cinchona bark, used by Quechua people
in Peru. It made European settlement of the tropics possible and treated
malaria for three hundred years.
- Artemisinin — from qinghao, via a fourth
century Chinese text and Tu Youyou's Nobel-winning work. The front line
against malaria today.
- Digoxin — from foxglove. William Withering learned
of it in 1775 from a Shropshire herbalist woman treating dropsy, and spent
ten years working out the dose. Still used for heart failure.
- Morphine — from the opium poppy, used in Sumer and
Egypt. Isolated in 1804; still the standard against which pain relief is
measured.
- Metformin — from goat's rue, a European folk remedy
for excessive thirst. Now the first-line drug for type 2 diabetes
worldwide.
- Reserpine — from sarpagandha, used in
Ayurveda for insanity and snakebite. It became one of the first effective
drugs for high blood pressure and for psychosis in the 1950s.
- Vincristine and vinblastine — from the Madagascar
periwinkle, investigated because of its traditional use for diabetes. They
turned out to treat childhood leukaemia and Hodgkin's lymphoma, and
transformed survival rates.
- Atropine — from deadly nightshade and datura, both
long used in Indian and European practice.
- Paclitaxel — from Pacific yew bark, from a screening
programme of plants used by indigenous peoples. Now a major cancer drug.
- Curare — Amazonian arrow poison, which became the
basis of the muscle relaxants that made modern surgery possible.
What the list actually shows
It shows that traditional knowledge is a serious source of leads. Old texts and
old practitioners pointed to plants that laboratories would never have chosen at
random, and the hit rate was far better than chance.
It also shows what had to be added. In every case the plant was variable and
often unsafe; the achievement was isolating the compound, working out the dose,
and testing it. Withering spent a decade on foxglove dosing precisely because
foxglove kills people at slightly too much. The tradition supplied the lead. The
method supplied the medicine.
That is why I think the argument between traditional and modern medicine is
mostly a false one. They did different jobs, and the results we have came from
both.
The other side of the list
The same traditions also produced remedies that killed: mercury for syphilis,
bloodletting for almost everything, arsenic tonics, aristolochia. Plants are
not safe because they are natural — foxglove, aconite, datura and
oleander are all traditional medicines and all lethal at modest doses.
Please do not self-medicate with plant preparations you have read about.
Please read this first
This site is a personal account and a record of traditional practice,
shared for information. It is not medical advice, not a diagnosis, and not a
treatment for any disease. I am not a doctor.
If you are unwell — and especially if you have a serious illness such
as cancer, diabetes or heart disease — please stay under the care of a
qualified physician. Nothing here should replace or delay that care.
More in this section
The ancient worldMesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome
ChinaQi, five phases, herbs, artemisinin
India's six systemsAyurveda, Siddha, Unani, Sowa Rigpa
The Islamic worldIbn Sina, Al-Razi, the first hospitals
Japan, Korea & beyondKampo, Hanbang, Thai and Vietnamese
EuropeMonastic medicine, herbals, nature cure
Indigenous traditionsAfrica, the Americas, Australia, Pacific
From plant to medicineEleven drugs that began as folk remedies
The modern turnGerm theory, trials, and where tradition sits now