> The label didn't start being used until the latter half of the 1900s
Yes, I am referring to the group(s) that applied that label to themselves, not to herbalists as a whole, but to groups that elevated wishful thinking and superstition to "facts". They always had cures for aids, cancer or you-name-it, based on "nobody of the natives who used the plant ever had it" (reality: were never diagnosed because they never saw a doctor).
I am talking about the groups that give every scientific mind the creeps and that harmed traditional medicine by putting it into the esoteric corner. But as I said, even these groups added some value - if only by collecting hints at useful plants and their applications that can serve as a starting point for further (actual) research.
My personal low was a Swiss "healer" who attributed the pain-killing effect of cloves to their shape - the discussion turned really nasty when I pointed her at Eugenol (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenol).
The personal highlight was the Moroccan herbalist in Fez, who knew the limits of what he can do, knew the pharmacology (to some degree) behind his plants and always could explain why they did things the way they did (and it's not "because tradition"...)
Then I am certain that the scientific cataloging and analysis of the the pharmacological properties of traditional medicines started before the alternative medicine movement.
> ETHNOBOTANY is virtually a new field of research, a field which, if investigated thoroughly and systematically, will yield results of great value to the ethnologist and incidentally also to the botanist. Ethnobotany is a science, consequently scientific methods of study and investigation must be adopted and adhered to as strictly as in any of the older divisions of scientific work. It is a comparatively easy matter for one to collect plants, to procure their names from the Indians, then to send the plants to a botanist for determination, and ultimately to formulate a list of plants and their accompanying Indian names, with some notes regarding their medicinal and other uses. ...
> Ethnobotanical research is concerned with several important questions: (a) What are primitive ideas and conceptions of plant life? (b) What are the effects of a given plant environment on the lives, customs, religion, thoughts, and everyday practical affairs of the people studied ? (c) What use do they make of the plants about them for food, for medicine, for material culture, for ceremonial purposes? ....
Yes, I am referring to the group(s) that applied that label to themselves, not to herbalists as a whole, but to groups that elevated wishful thinking and superstition to "facts". They always had cures for aids, cancer or you-name-it, based on "nobody of the natives who used the plant ever had it" (reality: were never diagnosed because they never saw a doctor).
I am talking about the groups that give every scientific mind the creeps and that harmed traditional medicine by putting it into the esoteric corner. But as I said, even these groups added some value - if only by collecting hints at useful plants and their applications that can serve as a starting point for further (actual) research.
My personal low was a Swiss "healer" who attributed the pain-killing effect of cloves to their shape - the discussion turned really nasty when I pointed her at Eugenol (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenol).
The personal highlight was the Moroccan herbalist in Fez, who knew the limits of what he can do, knew the pharmacology (to some degree) behind his plants and always could explain why they did things the way they did (and it's not "because tradition"...)