Chapter 22 



DRUG PLANTS 



Man, in. common with other animals, is afflicted with a large 

 number of diseases, due either to attack of his body by parasitic 

 agencies, or to an upsetting of the normal functioning of his body 

 by other environmental factors. From the very beginning of 

 man's existence there have been these disease-producing agencies, 

 and man has always fought against them so that he might have 

 a more enjoyable life. Knowing nothing about microorganisms, 

 and little more about human anatomy and physiology, primitive 

 man attributed disease to the presence of an evil spirit in the 

 body of the afflicted. The best way to cure, he believed, was to 

 drive the evil spirit from the body, and he employed various 

 means to this end, among them the use of foul- tasting plant 

 substances which were supposed to make the body a hostile 

 residence for such evil spirits. 



So it came about that various plants were used thousands of 

 years ago, in a very different manner from that in which they 

 are used today. Many drugs were in use in China as long ago as 

 5000 B.C.; the Hebrews, Egyptians, Babylonians and Greeks 

 were all familiar with many of our present day drugs. Dioscorides, 

 a Roman writer, compiled a treatise on the nature of all medic- 

 inal plants known in 77 B.C.; this remained in use for fifteen 

 hundred years. Later, in the sixteenth century, the peculiar 

 "Doctrine of Signatures" came into being. According to this, 

 every plant was endowed by the Creator with some sign of its 

 intended use. Thus plants having a part of their body shaped 

 like the lobes of the liver should be good for ailments of that part 

 of the human body; plants having heart-shaped leaves should 

 be beneficial to an ailing heart, and so on for all parts and organs 

 of the body. This belief is still mirrored in the common names 

 of many plants, such as heart's ease, liver leaf, heal-all, etc. 



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