A point of confusion when it comes to herbal medicines is what medical conditions will a particular herb treat? The confusion often arises from herbal marketers not understanding herbal medical concepts, and by the public not understanding how herbs should be used.
Herbal medicine goes back into the mists of time, long before the current biomedical definitions of medical conditions. Herbs were used based on the symptoms of the patient, not on modern medical diagnostics. As a result a herb or herb formula may have been used for many types of medical conditions based on a specific set of symptoms. For example there are many herb formulas for rashes. From an herbal point of view it does not matter whether the rash is caused by a virus, bacterial infection, or allergic reaction. The symptoms of a red itchy rash are the same. Since the herbs are targeted at helping the body to overcome those symptoms rather than the specific causative factor, the same herbal formula might be used for all three conditions.
The problem really comes in when marketers look at past uses of a herb and try to translate the use into modern terminology. For example, herbal medicine identifies many types of headaches, and herbal formulas are customized to the various types. If a herbal marketer promotes that a herb is traditionally used for headaches, it is quite likely the consumer is going to get a herb that is not specific to the type of headache that they have.
Many good herbal text books reference modern biomedical conditions when defining the use of a herbal medicine. The difference between these lists and the ones found in other books and magazines is some variation of the phrase: “With appropriate presentation, this formula may be used in treating such bio-medically defined disorder as....”. In other words the determination of which herb formula to use is should not be based on the bio-medically defined disorder but rather the traditional herbal diagnostic indications. To do otherwise would not help the patient or may make their condition worse. To properly use herbs as medicine it is important to talk to a herbalist who knows how to use herbal diagnostics to identify what medicine is right for you.
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