Looking Backward to Find the Path Forward

This month I have the pleasure of having a co-author, Rosari Kingston. Ms. Kingston is the former chair of the Professional Association of Medical Herbalists in Ireland - the Irish Institute of Medical Herbalists. Over the past two decades, Ms. Kingston has sought to develop research for practicing herbalists, so as to provide information about their clinical practice. She is currently carrying out research in the continuity of the Irish herbal tradition through the centuries.

As I did not provide an editorial in last month's Pharmacognosy Research, in the current issue I will cast my eye over interesting articles from both the present issue and the previous one. In both issues, I was struck by the very obvious fact of how many countries have utilized their indigenous botanicals for many generations. You may say that they had no alternative, and this is quite true! This has prompted me to consider and examine the parallels between Irish and British 'herbal cures' and traditional remedies from other regions of the world. Another seemingly obvious fact is that it is only relatively recently, when scientific techniques and technologies became available that we have realized that the use to which the herbs were put in the past were entirely valid and appropriate, and in fact in many instances, had a very sound scientific basis. Read more...