Herbal Medications Have Been Used Safely For Centuries

Herbal medications are the oldest and most widely practised form of medicine. Every country has its healing plants and traditions of using them going back many centuries.

Until relatively recently, doctors were as likely to prescribe herbs for their patients as synthetic drugs.

Since the advent of the modern drugs industry, herbal medications have gradually lost favour with the medical establishment. You might hear claims that they are dangerous, but herbal medications have a much better safety record than laboratory drugs. For instance, no herbal medicine has ever been responsible for anything like the thalidomide tragedy of the 1960’s.

Side effects of drugs are often discovered after several years of use, but herbs have been used safely for millennia. With the backing of modern science, herbal medications are safer than ever.

In the past, every village had its wise woman, who would prescribe herbs gathered from fields and hedgerows. Most people would know at least a little about common medicinal herbs, and no store cupboard would be complete without a few dried herbs. There is no reason not to revive this practise.

Many herbs can be safely used at home. Often the distinction between food and medicine is blurred. Some herbs can be used as teas, or in salads, soups and other dishes. This is perhaps the most natural way to use herbal medicines. Making herbs a regular part of your diet can help you avoid illness.


While a lot of wildflowers are rare today, and some plants are tricky to identify, most of the best medicinal plants are still very common and easily recognised.

For instance, you don’t have to go far to find nettles or dandelions. Nettles are very rich in iron, so they make a good blood tonic. When eaten as food or drunk as a tea they build the blood. The fresh leaves make a marvellous spring tonic, whether eaten (e.g. nettle soup) or as a tea. If you cut nettles regularly you can have young tender leaves for most of the year.


Dandelions are a useful natural diuretic. (Hence the French name, ‘pis-en-lit’, and the English nickname ‘wet-the-bed’.) The young leaves can be added to salads. The flower stalks are useful in cases of gallstones – just pick it and eat it. It won’t interfere with any other treatment you are taking, and is completely safe.

If you like things to be conveniently packaged, you can buy many herbs in the form of teabags. Raspberry leaf is one that no pregnant woman should be without. In Victorian times, and earlier, as soon as a woman suspected she was pregnant she would start drinking raspberry leaf tea on a daily basis. Because of its high iron content it helps to build the blood – obviously helpful in pregnancy. But it also stimulates Braxton Hicks contractions – the practise contractions the womb makes to build up its strength in preparation for labour. (For this reason some people say you shouldn’t start using it till near the end of pregnancy, but I’ve never heard of a case of raspberry leaf tea causing premature labour. I’ve always started taking it as soon as I knew I was pregnant.) Blackberry leaves have similar properties.

Chamomile is perhaps the best-known herb tea, and one that no household should be without. In the past the plant was such a well-known herbal medication that herbalists didn’t bother to describe its appearance. When my mother was a child, chamomile was the only tea she knew. Gentle and mild, yet amazingly effective, it relaxes both mind and body. The herbalist Mrs Grieve describes it as having “a wonderfully soothing, sedative and absolutely harmless effect” – unlike certain drugs prescribed as sedatives, which are generally addictive.

Chamomile should be the first thing to take in all cases of stress, anxiety, or insomnia. It’s also helpful in many cases of physical aches and pains. It’s great for children with tummy ache or women with period pains, and in many cases of illness. The great thing about it is that it’s totally harmless, so it’s always worth trying it, whatever’s wrong. Years ago, when I had colitis, chamomile was the first thing that helped me – from the first dose. One cup first thing in the morning eased those awful cramping pains.


If you want to know more about medicinal herbs and how to use them yourself, there are a number of books to help you. I particularly like a new one called “Hedgerow Medicine” . It has straightforward instructions and very clear photographs for easy identification of plants.

If you prefer to have help, you can buy many herbal medications from health food stores. The shop assistants can advise you on what you need.

Or you can consult a qualified herbalist. He or she will prescribe a suitable herbal medicine specifically for you, taking into account all your symptoms. For serious conditions, this may be the best route. Herbalists receive medical training as thorough as a doctor’s, and will be registered with a professional body.

In Britain, herbalists are registered with the Association of Master Herbalists, the British Herbal Medicine Association or the National Institute of Medical Herbalists. Similar organisations exist in other countries to ensure that practising herbalists are properly trained and qualified.

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