Western Herbal Medicine

Herbal medicine is the oldest and still the most widely used system of medicine in the world today. It is medicine made exclusively from plants. It is used in all societies and is common to all cultures. 

Herbal medicines include herbs, herbal materials, herbal preparations, and finished herbal products that contain parts of plants or other plant materials as active ingredients. Herbs contain a large number of naturally occurring chemicals that have biological activity and compounds from plants that are used to produce reliable pharmaceutical drugs.

In the past 150 years the biologically active compounds found in plants have been utilised to synthesise many pharmaceutical drugs. These active compounds can function effectively as teas, tablets, essential oils, ointments or extracts.