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With the creation of the earth and
all living things, God provided us with our own medicine
cabinet. Though it may have been earlier, we can generally
date the use of plants for medicinal purposes to 1770 B.C.
Plants such as henbane, licorice, and mint were mentioned
in the Code of Hammurabi. The Egyptians made records of
their medicinal plants on temple walls and on Ebers Papyrus
around 1550 B.C. There were 700 medicinal plant formulas
mentioned. Examples of these were castor-bean, mandrake
and hemp. During the Golden Age of Greece, Hippocrates advocated
the use of plant products as a cure for many illnesses.
In 77 B.C., Dioscorides listed in his text, De Materia
Medica, the medicinal properties of many known plants.
And it was during the Middle Ages that botany and medicine
became more closely linked.
Many of our current
day medicines are derived from plants, and then synthesized
in a laboratory. Some examples of medicinal plants are:
Bark of the white
willow tree—aspirin (Acetylsalicylic Acid)
Pokeweed –
A substance purified from the leaves of this plant is being
used to retard reproduction of the AIDS virus within infected
cells.
Opium Poppy –
morphine and other analgesics
May Apple –
the roots of this plant have been experimented with as a
possible treatment for small-cell lung cancer, testicular
cancer, and lymphoma.
Pacific Yew Tree
– taxol a drug used to treat ovarian cancer was originally
taken from the bark of this tree.
Foxglove –
digitalis to treat heart failure
Hundreds and
hundreds more plants have medicinal uses. We must remember
that when we destroy rain forests and other natural areas,
we are really destroying ourselves. For only a small portion
of plants of the earth have been identified or studied as
to their medicinal uses.
Marie Burgess
Creation Stewards
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