Western Ancient Home Remedies

The Ancient Egyptians
In ancient Egypt, herbs were used for religious purposes, as cosmetics and for healing. Many plants and their extraction methods are depicted on the walls of tombs, indicating their central role in Egyptian life. Fragments of medical papyri from about 2000 BC give left juniper was one of the herbs used for healing and ritual in ancient egypt. instructions and recipes for preparing various herbal medicaments including unguents, poultices and beverages made from herbs such as juniper, licorice, sweet calamus and aloe vera. Herbs were also extensively used in the mummification process.

The Ancient Greeks
In classical times little, if any, distinction was made between Hippocratic medicine and natural philosophy. Physicians shared the view of the world that held that humans Eire a microcosm of the universal macrocosm of nature. All things in nature derive from the same source and partake of its vital energy, or pneuma. The fundamental elements in nature, Earth, Water, Fire and Air-Ether form in the human body the biological humours of phlegm, blood, yellow bile and black bile. Health comes from a balanced mingling, or krasis of the humours, which leads to a state of well-being or harmonia. The Hippocratic physicians advocated the use of special diets, fasting, herbs and habits to harmonize the particular balance of humours within each individual.

Two ancient Greeks who also played an important part in the history of herbal medicine were Dioscorides and Galen. Dioscorides, a surgeon in the Roman army, wrote a five-volume De Materia Medica in the first century AD, which was subsequently used for centuries by herbalists.

In the second century AD, Galen, a Greek physician in the employment of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, praised Dioscorides' work and based much of his use of herbs on it. Galen was a physician of considerable experience and wrote numerous treatises on the arts of medicine and on his investigations into anatomy and physiology. Galen also wrote numerous commentaries on the works of his predecessors and contemporaries. Because of his prestige and the survival of many of his writings, Galen was to be the dominant influence on all subsequent medical thought until the Renaissance, some 1,600 years later.

Islamic Home Remedies
Perhaps the most important Arab physician and teacher was Abu Ah al-Husayn Abd Allah Ibn Sina, known in the West as Avicenna. Bom in AD 980, Avicenna, who was a court physician in Persia, was a man of learning in many fields besides medicine - including mathematics, astrology and philosophy. He was also an early chemist and perfected several processes such as filtration, sublimation, calcination and distillation - producing the first essential oil of rose. Avicenna wrote many books, the most famous being his Canon of Medicine, which greatly influenced the development of medicine and chemistry, not only in the Middle East, but also in Europe and India.

Arabian civilization established the practice of founding public hospitals and dispensaries for the sick. Today Islamic medicine, which is known as Unani-Tibb, continues to be practiced throughout the former Islamic empire, from North Africa to the Indian subcontinent and

Indonesia Home Remedies
Herbal medicine continued to be studied and used in Europe, by monks and nuns and by gifted individuals. The monasteries and convents maintained special gardens for cultivating medicinal plants. Among lay people too, there was usually someone, often a wise woman, who had a knowledge of healing herbs.

In the later Middle Ages and with the Renaissance in the 15th century, an explosion of learning began, stimulated by increased contacts with the Islamic empire through the Crusades. Ancient Latin and Greek texts were rediscovered during this period and the first medical school was started in Salerno, Italy. The superior medical knowledge of the Arabs was eagerly sought, their texts re-translated into Latin and their teachers invited to teach in newly established medical schools.