Herbal therapies are among the oldest known to humans. Shamanistic healings with the hands and material from the surrounding provided the medium for the healing ritual to take place. Plant materials were burned to clear the evil spirits from the diseased person or group of people. These forms of healing were part of the nomad hunters lives 15,000 to 35,000 B.C.. Acupuncture and Ayurveda as theoretical forms of medicine arrived much later in the scheme of things.
Most cultures have a patriarch of medicine at there roots. Hidden at those roots are the women who bear the herbal tradition within the local community and family structure. The development of patriarchal political and religious structures also sought to repress the medicine womans power. This took place in the form of the witch hunt and was symbolized as a dragon being slain within the context of the Christian pantheon.
The first Patriarch of Chinese Herbal medicine was Shen Nung, who wrote the first Pharmacopeia around 2,750 B.C.. The East Indian Vedas including the Charak Samita (Vedic Medical Text) were brought to earth by Vyasu Dev, an angelic incarnation of divinity. Early herbal records in western civilization came around the birth of Christ and were recorded by Dioscorides. Also of great influence on western medicine was Galen who developed the concepts of humors and elements. His ideas in all likelihood stemmed from Vedic influences. For that matter, as Chinese medical theory was heavily influenced by Buddhist doctrine, they were also influenced by Vedic doctrine.
In respect to the Chinese process of ancestral worship, it is possible call on these great beings to help in herbal studies. The Chinese would commonly burn incense on the full moon to bring the power of Shen Nung into the herbal works. The great sages and saints of herbal medicine can be called upon to infiltrate the dreamtime with sacred healing knowledge.
After the development of the printing press a flurry of herbals occurred in western Europe. This period became known as the age of herbals to the botanists.
Interesting developments took place in this country in reference to herbalism. The first settlers had mixed associations from embracing the obvious wisdom of the Native Americans to blindly holding the budding scientific view as the way. This struggle continued intensely from the mid 1800s to the early 1900s with the eclectic physicians refusing to resort to poisoning people with heavy toxic metals such as mercury. Until this time western medicine had evolved as a primarily barbaric, toxic therapy as much responsible for doing as much harm as good.
During the turn of the century, the Rockefellers and other money families saw the immense profit in surgical and drug therapies withdrew any funding from the 80 odd percent of homeo and naturopathic schools. The redirecting of funding and political lobbying to drugs forced most natural schools into closure; this added to the threat that a physician could lose his license for practicing natural therapies has led this country into a grave medical crisis. As a result, herbal medicine fell into decline in this country. America's own herbal traditions were taken to England where they flourished.
As science is catching up to the ancient wisdom, it is confirming herbal traditions that have been here since the dawn of humanity.