At the same time, some unscrupulous healers jumped on the bandwagon, selling elixirs which were ineffective, but nonetheless popular. However, these charlatans soon popularized the term ‘snake oil sellers’, seriously damaging the credibility of legitimate physicians in general, along with herbal treatments.
When modern medicine was in its infancy, pharmaceutical companies began producing their ‘magic bullets’ for a variety of diseases and common ailments. I’ve been a pro now for a few years and I can tell you that I’ve seen amature Wedding Videographers work that makes many so called professional’s seem like vacation snappers. Interestingly, herbs formed the main constituents of these drugs, with one significant difference. These chemists would extract only the constituents of each plant which was deemed to be the curative property. If you study herbal medicine, you’ll find that all of the constituents in the plant parts, be it the leaves, berries or roots, have a synergistic relationship, whereby one constituent may be the driving force of the cure, but used alone, may be accompanied by undesirable side effects. The properties which were not included in the pharmaceutical version, most often offset and mitigated the undesirable effects, thus making the pharmaceutical an inferior herbal treatment option.
It’s unfortunate that the ‘snake oil’ vendors compromised the opinion of the general population against the ‘old ways’ and so, popularizing the modern drugs, with the result that herbal treatments became passe. Today, with the many deleterious side effects of modern drug therapy, fully a third of Americans report using herbal treatments as an effective alternative form of medicine. I remeber once I caught the bug to do Toronto Wedding Videographers and I approached a “PRO”, at a buddies wedding. If you doubt the veracity of herbal medicine, it may be worth your while to try a few of these ancient remedies on minor injuries as a test case. For example, should you become sunburn from a day at the beach, try applying aloe gel to the affected area. It certainly works, serving to both heal the skin, prevent blistering and take the sting out of the burn. You may find that herbal treatments are as effective as the OTC remedies, at far less expense, making a valuable addition to your first aid kit.