Phytotherapy
Historic
Phytotherapy is the study of medicinal plants and their applications in curing diseases (Ferro, 2008).
The use of medicinal plants and their derivatives for the treatment of diseases dates to the origins of humanity. There are reports of the use of medicinal plants in Babylon around 3000 BC. Around 2000 B.C. Chinese Materia Medica was produced. Around 500 B.C. lived Hippocrates (460–377 BC). Considered the “Father of Medicine” who had a profound knowledge of botany and the medicinal use of hundreds of species of aromatic plants. In his works, he cites more than 400 plants, among them: poppy, rosemary, sage, and artemisia. He based his practice and his way of understanding the human organism, including personality, on the theory of the four bodily humors (blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile), and stated that according to the states of mind, or the being enters into equilibrium (eucrasia), or into illness and pain (dyscrasia).
During the Middle Ages, individuals who knew how to use medicinal plants began to be persecuted and accused of witchcraft. Knowledge about the use of medicinal plants has only survived to the present day within monasteries, where monks copied ancient books by hand. The Benedictine monasteries monopolized the cultivation and distribution of aromatic herbs. This situation lasted until the end of the 19th century. From the Renaissance (1464–1534), new lights were shed on humanity.
Spice warehouses came to be known as “boticas” and their owners as apothecaries. It was these apothecaries who gave rise to “materia medica.”
After the Second World War, antihistamines, antipsychotics, antidepressants, anxiolytics, and synthetic anti-inflammatories appeared. Thus, the western paradigm of therapy is consolidated: the drug is a pure molecule, usually derived from synthesis, whose model was aspirin. It is the advent of the Pharmaceutical Industry, whose consequences were:
• Reduction in the use of vegetable derivatives as medicines.
• Monotherapy for the treatment of complex diseases.
• Development of synthetic drugs.
• Breaking the connection between plants and human health.
Undoubtedly, advances in science have provided a significant increase in health and longevity of the population and, as a result, Phytotherapy has come to be associated with witchcraft, quackery, primitive practices, deceit, mysticism, and even a “medicine for those who do not have access to ‘true medicine’”.
However, The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 70–95% of the world's population uses traditional medicine practices, including herbal medicine, as their sole form of therapy (WHO, 2013).
Traditional knowledge survived through healers and healers who, with their bottles, brought relief to countless people unassisted by modern medicine. For all these reasons, there are difficulties in the acceptance of phytotherapy by the medical community (Robinson & Zhang, 2011; Sardesai, 2002).
The use of herbal medicines for prophylactic, curative, palliative, or diagnostic purposes has become officially recognized by the WHO, which recommended the worldwide dissemination of the knowledge necessary for their use.
In Brazil, it was only in 1981 that the Ministry of Health began to adopt medicinal plant products as a priority (Ordinance No. 212, of September 11, 1981). In 1982, some medicinal plants were included in the list of the Central de Medicamentos (CEME), through the Medicinal Plants Research Program (PPPM), which aimed to
the development of alternative and complementary therapy, based on
science.
“I, as a Physiotherapist, use Phytotherapy as a complementary therapy
to the most diverse situation.”
Online service:
The consultations start by marking the Complete Assessment of the patient. I aim to observe the main complaints and combine the diagnosis of Tongue (Traditional Chinese Medicine) with questions that complement the diagnosis. From there, I guide the best way to use plants as a therapeutic method.
I use teas, capsules, baths, compresses, foot baths, syrups, etc.