Chamomile is known for its soothing effect. Since Roman times it has been used to heal skin conditions, including burns, sunburns and bed sores. In some cultures it is used as a gargle for toothache, an eyewash and a digestion aid.
Plants can cure your woes? It's the truth says a group of leading botanists who congregated at the University's Morris Arboretum Friday, June 6, for a day-long seminar.
The seminar, entitled Healing Plants: Herbal Traditions and Medicine Today, was an outgrowth of the Healing Plants exhibit that opened in October. The exhibit, slotted to stay at the arboretum for the next five to seven years, teaches the medicinal uses of plants.
The talks covered topics from Native American healing plants to market research and regulations of herbs, but the message in each was the same: "It's time to wake up and smell the chamomile tea." The words became the slogan of the day.
Until recently, many in the medical field scoffed at herbal medicines, but today some are beginning to change their tune. In fact, the seminar of about 50 people had a sprinkling of health professionals. "Many patients used to be afraid to ask their doctor about herbal medicines for fear of being ridiculed," said Mark Blumenthal, one of the speakers and executive director of the American Botanical Council. "Today, the doctors are trying to catch up with the herbalist and the consumer."
Especially American doctors. According to Blumenthal 70 percent of German doctors routinely recommend herbal medicine, especially in cardiovascular cases, and 80 percent of the world population in developing nations depends on herbal medicine.
The big question then becomes, if other countries are using herbal remedies successfully, why is it so difficult for them to gain Food and Drug Administration approval? And the answer, said Blumenthal, is that the FDA does not have set guidelines to assess herbal medicines.
Bonnie O'Connor, the first speaker of the day and an assistant professor at the MCP Hahnemann School of Medicine who also teaches at Penn, gave a talk on the Cross-Cultural Concepts in Healing With Plants. "All healing systems are a product of culture and cultural ideas, which are founded on cultural definitions of health and information," she said.
Each culture has ways of preparing plants that can extract certain herbal healing agents. But other factors, such as the season and how and where a plant is cultivated, can affect its healing qualities.
But a healing system must not be confused with a curing system, stressed O'Connor. The former comforts the soul and body, but the latter cures a disease. "A person may resolve that an illness is not going to go away but it needs to be healed." She said healing can also be linked to the harmony or balance in the body and often relates to the "innate qualities of hot and cold."
"Foods and plants are selected for therapeutic benefit at least in part on the basis of their hot/cold properties, so that consumption will move the body back toward a state of equilibrium," O'Connor said.
E. Barrie Kavasch, a trustee and research associate of the Institute for American Indian Studies in Washington, Conn., supported this statement when she began her after-lunch talk. "Lunch did much to heal our spirits." The lunch, which included plenty of healing plants, of course--a leafy green salad and quiche with tomatoes, basil and spinach--gave the audience an opportunity to mingle with the speakers.
At one table, three women complimented Steven Foster, the associate editor of the Journal of Herbs, Spices, and Medicinal Plants, on the talk he gave before lunch on Chinese herbs in America. One audience member was heard to say that she could not believe that America and China had 799 medicinal plants in common. Another member said she had not realized how much the different species of ginseng (which has a normalizing effect on the body) differed in size, Chinese ginseng being much larger than America's version. And Foster joked, "Can you really call something ginseng that has to be harvested with a chainsaw?"
Blumenthal also touched on the topic of ginseng, saying that he and other botanists are studying the ginseng products that have flooded that American market. They hope to release their report in the fall issue of HerbalGram.
"Research and exchange with colleagues is the most powerful tool we have," said Jim Lewandowski, director of horticulture and curator of the Living Collection at the arboretum. And after this statement the audience was afforded an opportunity to become a part of that learning process in a short panel discussion in which people were free to ask for advice and comment on their own amateur botany experiments.
"The panel discussion was great because they were exploring their own health. I only wish it had been longer," sighed O'Connor.
But the discussion had to be cut short so that the audience members could be given a guided tour of the Healing Plants Exhibit that they had heard about since 10 a.m. Blumenthal, standing in the Rose Garden, sipping punch at the day-ending reception, said: "This is a great place for us to be. It is the perfect venue to have people learning about herbal medicine--in a garden."
Return to Compass Features for June 17, 1997