Herbal medicine
study and use of medicinal properties of plants
Herbal medicine (also called herbalism, phytomedicine or phytotherapy) is the study of pharmacognosy and the use of medicinal plants, which are a basis of traditional medicine. Scientific evidence for the effectiveness of many herbal treatments remains limited, prompting ongoing regulatory evaluation and research into their safety and efficacy. Standards for purity or dosage are generally not provided. The scope of herbal medicine sometimes includes fungal and bee products, as well as minerals, shells and certain animal parts.
Paraherbalism is the pseudoscientific use of plant or animal extracts as medicine, relying on unproven beliefs about the safety and effectiveness of minimally processed natural substances.
Herbal medicine has been used since at least the Paleolithic era, with written records from ancient Sumer, Egypt, Greece, China, and India documenting its development and application over millennia. Modern herbal medicine is widely used globally, especially in Asia and Africa. Traditional medicine systems involve long-standing, culturally-embedded practices using local herbs, animal products, and spiritual elements. These systems have influenced and contributed to modern pharmacology. Herbalists believe that plants, having evolved defenses against environmental stressors, produce beneficial phytochemicals, often extracted from roots or leaves, that can be used in medicine.
The public source identifies “Herbal medicine” as study and use of medicinal properties of plants. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Herbal, medicine and study.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q861699. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Herbal medicine” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.