Native Americans had and still have
a vast knowledge medicinal herbs and plants,
sometimes referred to as Myths and Legends by may
tribes. They instructed the early settlers in
healing wounds, disease, safe childbirth practices
and setting fractures. The aspiring medicine-men
were extensively educated in the various plants,
then they specialized in one disease or related
group of diseases. We can thank our Native American
brothers and sisters for the vast knowledge of many
herbs that we use today, like cascara sagrada,
American ginseng, joe-pye weed, goldenseal,
sassafras and witch hazel.
American Indian Medicine has been
around for thousands of years before those that
claim discovery of these natural remedies.
A Neanderthal burial ground some
60,000 year old have show discoveries that indicated
these early people used marshmallow, yarrow and
groundsel, which are still in use today.
In India the use of herbs dates back
some 3500 years or even longer. Underlying the
medical culture of India both folk traditions as
well as knowledge systems has a deep understanding
of the medicinal value of the plants, there is
strong evidence of a tradition of use of medicinal
plants that is more than three thousand years old.
It is estimated that about 80,000 species of plants
are utilized by the different system of Indian
medicine. The indigenous knowledge about plants and
plant products is rather detailed and sophisticated
and has evolved into a separate branch of learning.
According to the World Health Organization more than
1 billion people rely on herbal medicines to some
extent. They have listed 21,000 plants have reported
medicinal uses around the world.
Other cultural history of the
relationship between products from living plants and
healing medications goes back to 3700 B.C. with
Egypt, followed by the Chinese and later the Greeks
and Romans. In the early frontier days of West
Virginia, the vast majority of settlers in the
region were cut off from any kind of "formal"
medical care and moreover, competent physicians long
remained beyond the reach, both physically and
financially, of a vast segment of the population.
For residents deprived of these benefits, folk
medicine derived from time-honored and age-old
traditions along with much of the aboriginal
traditions was used.
