Catatan

Hippocrates (460-377 B.C.), who used many of the herbal medicines described in this book, lamented,
“Life is short, and the art long; the occasion fleeting; experience fallacious; and judgment difficult.”
Herbal remedies have become a major component of American health care. Botanicals like
ginseng, ma huang, St. John’s wort, and valerian are now household words throughout the world,
and the sales of herbal medicine are increasing exponentially.
Alternative therapies include acupuncture, energy healing, folk medicines, herbal medicines,
homeopathy, massage, and megavitamins, to name only a few. Millions of people in the third world
have used and will always use herbal medicines because they believe in them and regard them as
“their” medicine, in contrast to the “allopathic” (conventional Western) system of medicine brought
in from “outside.” These medicinal herbs are available locally and are prescribed by traditional
practitioners of medicine who are part of the community and in whose presence the patient feels
comfortable. In Western countries, there is now an increased use of herbal medicines, largely
because of a belief that powerful synthetic agents used in Western medicine can exert more unwanted
side effects and are too often used indiscriminately and irrationally. Many of our present medicines
are derived directly or indirectly from higher plants. Although several classic plant drugs have lost
much ground to synthetic competitors, others have gained a new investigational or therapeutic
status in recent years. In addition, a number of novel plant-derived substances have entered into
Western drug markets.