About Me
I have always had an interest in herbs and medicine, but never really knew that it was quite such a big subject until I decided to study Herbal Medicine at the University of Central Lancashire. The subjects covered on the course were many and very diverse from biochemistry to botany, and clinical diagnosis to anthroposophical research - I was amazed that it was such a broad subject. I enjoyed the course immensely, and have learned many skills to make use of in practice. My training included therapeutic conversation and history taking, physical examination and diagnostic methods, planning treatment and formulating prescriptions, and the making of herbal extracts such as tinctures.
We were given a brief introduction to many of the systems and philosophies of medicine, most of which have been discarded by modern biomedicine, but may still be of use to the herbalist in better understanding the individual patient and choosing the most appropriate treatment. These philosophies include the Chinese five elements medicine, Ayurveda, and western Humoral theory.
The philosophy that interested me the most was physiomedicalism - it started in the 19th century and was at the time intended as a scientific system. However, it included a concept of vitalism that modern medical science seems unable to describe - the force that drives living things to grow, reproduce, and cast off harmful influences of poison and disease. The physiomedical philosophy is that medical treatment should assist the action of this force, never act against it, in order to nurture the health of the individual. A simple example of this is the case of fever - the body's temperature rises until the patient begins to sweat. A common modern treatment would be to give asprin, to suppress the temperature and reduce the pain. However, the physiomedical approach is to encourage the completion of the fever, by keeping warm and taking copious hot teas to boost the immune system and encourage the excretion of metabolic toxins. In this way the immune system is strengthened, rather than dampened down and suppressed.
I think that the physiomedical philosophy allows for for a scientific understanding of the older traditions, and hopefully adds a little more depth to the interpretation of modern scientific discoveries.