Dated back, at least 60,000 years, in what is now present day Iraq, archaeologists found in a Neanderthal grave, eight unique medicinal plants that are still used in that region for healing today. The connection between man and his hunt for medicine in nature dates from the far past, documented in ancient Chinese text, depicted in native song and dance, and even wrote about in Homer’s the Iliad and the Odysseys (800 B.C.). It’s only until recently that people have lost touch with nature and turned to modern …show more content…
Plant based medicine has been in use since the dawn of human existence and has worked for countless cultures around the world, whereas some of the pharmaceutical drugs that are being prescribed have only been tried and tested for a very limited amount of time, over-and-over proving to be dangerous or ineffective once on the market. Don’t get me wrong, conventional medicine has its place and over the years there have been significant leaps in research and drastic benefits to the health care system. However, the risks associated with pharmaceutical drugs can be high compared to those of alternative medicine, so no harm done supplementing your health with herbs that can easily be plucked out of your own backyard—promoting prevention and longevity. If nothing else, we should rekindle our connection to mother nature, taking into account that we are connected to the trees and plants on earth, and that just maybe, this green that surrounds us is not only our life-line, but our nurse in poorly times as well. If only we could go back to a time when everything that went into our body had a purpose; a time when we used natural, recognizable, and nourishing remedies as medicine; a time when we reached for blackberry root as a diarrhea stopper, instead of an alien pill made in a laboratory with a long list of