i’ve been thinking about how people approach health when they’re feeling unwell. some folks prefer to go to a doctor or use pharmaceutical medicine from the pharmacy, while others choose herbal remedies or alternative treatments. personally, i prefer using herbal remedies because i believe that all the ingredients in pharmaceutical medicines ultimately come from nature, and we can find those remedies ourselves in plants. what about you?
edit: cmon guys it’s not about the traditional vs modern treatment. just wanna know other’s opinion about this…
Herbal medicine works and has a basis in reality as well, its not witchcraft, it has been around for thousands of years. There is stuff you cant cure with simple herbs though and modern medicine is more convenient. No need to be so condescending.
The stuff that works in herbal medicine have been studied and improved in modern medicine. The two can’t and shouldn’t be equated. Anyone claiming herbal medicine should be respected and not condemned is a crook and/or idiot. Most proponents are crooks, trying to sell things they know or don’t care if they work.
Things like paracetamol and lithium have a basis in herbal medicine. Paracetamol was improved to stop the horrendous damage the herbal medicine did to your kidneys. Lithium was quantified and controlled to minimise the impact of taking a toxic mental (Lithium was sold as natural healing waters found in springs, it was scientist investigating these waters that identified lithium as an element), newer less toxic medicines are now available for these conditions.
Medicine displaced herbal remedies. The regulation of medicine means the only practionationers of herbal medicines are unregulated crooks.
I dont know what youre thinking of when you are saying ‘herbal medicine’ but it is clearly not the same as me. When I drink camomile tea for an upset stomach, which 100% works, how is that me being an unregulated crook?
The way you phrased your comment made it appear like you’re saying they’re the just as effective in all regards as each other. A medication will provably make a difference via more mechanical biology, whereas a herbal tea will make a difference with the mind. The main difference is the way people feel better. Using a painkiller for a chronic pain is better than drinking a herbal tea, but if you stub your toe both will work. Needing to say herbal tea isn’t witchcraft, has a basis in reality and has been around for thousands of years comes across as defensive. (In this case a more broad defense of alternative medicine.) Putting your comment in a more down to earth way would’ve avoided the, less than favourible, interpretation by commenters. (Mentioning that the plecibo effect is real or actual active ingredients in some herbal teas would also have helped.)
I never said they were equally effective, I simply stated that it is not baseless, replying to an incredibly rude commenter who was extremely confident in their scoentifically wrong statement, thats why I mocked the commenter with the witchcraft part. Also I literally said ‘there is stuff you cant simply cure with herbs’. If anyone thinks I valued the two equally they didnt read past the first 3 words of my comment.
People are so quick to start a witchhunt based on absolutely nothing. This is pretty sad…
some herbal medicine works - it’s the stuff we made into modern medicine after decades of research. There is a distinct difference between “chew on this bark, it contains aspirin” and “don’t vax your kids, just rub these leaves on them”, and nobody’s really condescending to the first type.
The comment I replied to literally said herbal medicine has no base in reality, how is that not condescending?
Also, what does antivaxing have to do with herbal medicine? Theres a lot of unbased prejudice in this thread for people claiming to be on the scientific side…
It is extremely common, if one distrusts “modern medicine”, to use that same logic to distrust vaccines, ya know, a subset of modern medicine. Plenty of anti vax parents out there trying to treat braighleigh’s measles with pine nettles and “essential oils” - y’all are using the same lapse of logic, you’re gonna get lumped together.
Herbal medicine is not modern medicine’s “equal”, it is not condescending to refer to it as inferior. It is unbelievably frustrating to see individuals act as though their limited knowledge of plants and complete lack of knowledge of pharmaceuticals gives them any leg to stand on compared to a qualified medical professional.
But who said anything at all about distrusting modern medicine? The point was that herbal medicine works to a certain degree and that it is not baseless.
I feel like Im being strawmanned really hard and I dont think Ill continue this discussion if the replies refer to things no one ever said or implied.
Ironically, that is witchcraft, in the traditional meaning of the word
just wondering why they’re here, gave my post a reply if doctors in black death plague don’t use herbals
Oh actually those herbals didn’t help! That was during the prime era of the miasma theory of disease and the thought was that the plague spread through bad air (actually spread through bacteria infesting fleas which infested rats and humans, or through direct contact without proper santitzation). So they used strong smelling herbs to attempt to ensure all the air they breathed was good air. It also helped them focus because the buboes stink when they rupture or necrotize. Also fun fact, the plague still exists, it’s just not present in significant amounts in the industrialized world because of antibiotics. This does however mean that we may eventually see the rise of antibiotic resistant plague.
it’s just an example, also i’m not talking about the strong smelling herbals as the treatment (although it’s the most popular one that being told in the history books and/or internet). there was lavender being used for antibacterial treatments though they’re less effective (since the pandemic happened on the medieval age) so no modern meds invented. it’s less effective for us but effective enough for them (the people back then).
It was an apocalyptic pandemic. It was very much not good enough for them back then.
you’re saying this only from your point of view, whether or not something is good is relative. you would say it was good enough than nothing although still less effective than meds nowadays to “cure” the disease if you were alive back then, at least it was the best treatment back then.