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Traditional Medical Herbalist, Sheffield

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Holism

Herbal medicine is generally seen as being a form of holistic medicine, but what does this actually mean? Since holistic treatment is normally seen as being different from the treatment offered by orthodox doctors, let us consider a theoretical case and consider what is actually different in the treatment that might be offered by a herbalist and by a doctor.

A person with red inflamed skin on their arms, chest and face consults her doctor, who diagnoses "eczema". The doctor offers a mild corticosteroid cream and bath oil.

The same woman consults a herbalist who asks her about her symptoms and asks questions to find out about her health in general, and her life. The herbalist offers her a cream and a herbal mixture made from several plants explaining that the mixture to be taken internally is the important part of the remedy. The herbalist spends time listening to the woman and also stipulates some dietary rules.

"Holistic" is often taken to mean dealing with the underlying problems as well as the symptoms that are most easily apparent. In this example if the woman were to use the steroid cream from her doctor it may clear the problem quickly and be seen as the end of the story. If, however, the skin irritation is an expression of an inappropriate diet or stresses in the woman's life, then the problem may resume as soon as use of the cream stops. Indeed prolonged use of a steroid cream may lead to thin inflamed red skin!

The approach of the herbalist will take into account any stresses in the woman's life, and the medicine may well include herbs which support the function of the nervous system and which help to alleviate stress. The other herbs in the mixture will have the intention of healing from the inside out, so that new skin will grow through healthy. As well as specifying achievable goals in terms of dietary changes, the herbalist may suggest mental or physical exercises as seem appropriate.

The herbalist's choices of action are informed by several beliefs:

1. That the mind/body/emotions/spirit of a person are a continuum, that each aspect of a person's life and personality impinges on the others. That each of these aspects needs to be examined and addressed. A problem with hospital medicine is its tendency to discuss patients in terms of only one part of their body.
2. That the body has an ability to heal itself. As the body can heal itself from minor cuts and illnesses such as colds, so it can get over more chronic or serious problems. Herbal treatment is aimed at stimulating and supporting the body's tendency to return to a healthy balance.
3. Different people express disease differently, and remedies should be "person specific" rather than "disease specific". For example two partners may have an illness called flu. One may have a high temperature, aching joints, and congested nose. The other may not have the aching joints but have a bad sore throat. Each person may require a different herbal intervention.

In terms of the comparison made above between the approach of a doctor and a herbalist it should be pointed out that some doctors are, of course, more holistic than others. In terms of their interactions with social workers and housing departments etc they tend to have more social "clout" than alternative practitioners do. This means that they have more power to address some of the social problems that lie in the background to many illnesses, and at that level can be seen as the more holistic practitioners.

There are however other issues that dog the use of pharmaceutical medicine, and make its use less holistic than herbal alternatives. One such issue has already been mentioned above, namely the unwanted side effects of pharmaceutical drugs. Implicit in the use of modern medicines is the notion that they can't be very powerful unless they have strong side effects. Interestingly, many modern pharmaceutical drugs are based upon older botanical medicines. Aspirin was one of the first drugs to be synthesised artificially. Aspirin is a form of salicylic acid which occurs in willow bark and meadowsweet. Whilst in its pure form aspirin is associated with side effects including stomach irritation and in severe cases gastric bleeding, the herbs from which such chemicals were originally isolated do not. Herbs contain dozens of different organic compounds and they interact with each other mostly in such a way that the dangerous ones are made more safe. That this is so can be attributed to the wonders of Nature, the hand of God or Goddess, or fortuitous chance depending upon your worldview. The wayside weeds and plants which are the raw material for herbal medications are freely available to all, and as such have been, until recently, mostly unprofitable concerns for industry. Isolated components of plants can be synthesised and patented and profited from. Unfortunately the isolation of one plant compound from a herb nearly always increases the side effects associated with its use.

Inherent in the industrial production of pharmaceutical medicines are other problems also. Testing of modern drugs often involves vivisection, and the factories in which they are produced may be sources of environmental pollution. The industry has also been described as cynical in its offloading of those medicines discredited as being unsafe onto markets in the "third world". Modern medicine in general can be seen as overly hierarchical (and male dominated) and technological. As Oliver Sachs has said " We are overdeveloped in mechanical competence but lacking in biological intelligence, intuition and awareness, and it is this we need to regain not only in medicine but in all science." It is beyond the brief of this document to pursue these arguments to great depth, but it is important to consider the relative merits of orthodox and other medical systems in a wider context than just efficacy and safety.

See also More Information about Consultation with a Herbalist


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