A Brief History of Ancient Herbal Medicine

Knowing the history of herbal medicine shows us how connected humans have always been to natural ways of supporting wellness.

It reminds us that plants have been helping us stay healthy for thousands of years, offering a holistic and sustainable way to support our well-being.

Humans have been using plants for healing since ancient times.

Peoples all over the globe developed a working system of herbalism, learning from nature and passing down their knowledge through generations. Archaeological findings from caves in Iraq found evidence of humans using herbs for wellness dating back over 60,000 years.

Ancient civilizations in Egypt, China, and India made significant contributions to herbal medicine. Around 1500 BC, Egyptians wrote about plants like garlic and juniper on papyrus scrolls. Around 200 AD In China, they created a book called the "Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing," listing 365 herbs like ginseng and ephedra that were used for Traditional Chinese Medicine, and around the same time in India, texts such as the "Charaka Samhita" talked about healing plants like turmeric and ashwagandha.

During the Greek and Roman eras, figures like Hippocrates and Dioscorides (400 BC-100 AD) advanced herbal knowledge. Hippocrates, revered as the "Father of Medicine," emphasized plant-based therapies and was a firm believer in the healing power of nature, while Dioscorides' "De Materia Medica" became the first comprehensive herbal encyclopedia ever written.

In the “Dark Ages” of medieval Europe, Christian monks kept herbal knowledge alive. Monasteries grew medicinal plant gardens and documented herb uses in books like Hildegard of Bingen's "Physica." At the same time in the Islamic world, scholars like Avicenna were combining herbal knowledge from Greece, Rome, and Persia into their own medical texts.

The Renaissance witnessed a resurgence of herbalism with publications like John Gerard's "Herball" (1597) and Nicholas Culpeper's "The Complete Herbal" (1652), fostering interest in medicinal plants among the general public. 

Until the Modern Era, which began around 1500 AD, herbs and natural remedies were THE medicine.

As we will see in a future post, that began to shift after chemistry and alchemy came onto the scene, altering the history of health care, including herbal medicine, but herbs continued to play a vital role in wellness even then, and still do to this day.