> Perhaps it's just the egoist in me that wants to think there's nothing nature or a random plant can figure out or has figured out, that we can't figure out synthetically in the lab.
It's the other way around - most of the drugs we have are reverse-engineered plants. But there's nothing nature can do that we can't do better once we know how it works. What we do is, we take from nature the parts that actually do the healing and refine them, and we throw away the irrelevant rest.
The reason some old herbal cures may be worth looking for is that it's likely that there is yet another plant-based substance that we could turn into actual, much more powerful medicine.
An example of this is the single most used medicine ever, aspirin.
"Plant extracts, including willow bark and spiraea, of which salicylic acid was the active ingredient, had been known to help alleviate headaches, pains, and fevers since antiquity. The father of modern medicine, Hippocrates (circa 460 – 377 BC), left historical records describing the use of powder made from the bark and leaves of the willow tree to help these symptoms.In 1763, Edward Stone, at Oxford, isolated the active ingredient of aspirin in his discovery of salicylic acid."
We lose a lot when the oceans and rain forests are destroyed beyond repair including chemical compounds, proteins, and processes that have taken eons to evolve which we have not yet discovered.
How important to medicine are the ancient remedies derived from poppy and coca leaves?
On the flip side, there is this essential oil, naturopath movement posting things on my Facebook stream about how tea tree oil is a natural antibiotic and to use it on everything. Unfortunately, tea tree oil is effective against MRSA which is now developing resistance to it because of careless overuse by the natural health community. There are dozens of products at Whole Foods that contain it but not at therapeutic levels so one of two things are happening, first, people are killing bacteria on their skin which for the most part is beneficial and, second, bad bacteria is developing resistance.
It's the other way around - most of the drugs we have are reverse-engineered plants. But there's nothing nature can do that we can't do better once we know how it works. What we do is, we take from nature the parts that actually do the healing and refine them, and we throw away the irrelevant rest.
The reason some old herbal cures may be worth looking for is that it's likely that there is yet another plant-based substance that we could turn into actual, much more powerful medicine.