Ginseng and Tonic Herbalism
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Many people today are aware that many of the pharmaceutical medicines we use regularly are derived from traditional herbal remedies. Many are also aware that there is a tremendous amount of research happening today trying to derive new medications from traditional herbs.Every culture around the world has developed some form of natural medical system, generally including some variety of herbal remedies. In some cultures, the level of sophistication developed around herbal remedies is astounding. Ayurveda, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Japanese Kanpo, and other styles of herbalism developed many complex formulae to treat a wide range of diseases and injuries.There is also another style of herbalism in most cultures, besides medical herbalism. This is the tradition of Tonic Herbalism.Tonics may be defined in many ways; in this article, the term will be used to describe a certain subset of medicinal herbs. (That means that all the tonic herbs may be used as medicinal herbs, but not all medicinal herbs can be used as tonics.)The focus of tonic herbs is not relieving symptoms, but to increase or fortify the natural processes and systems of the body. Tonic herbs are generally very safe to use, with few or no contraindications, and many benefits.In Chinese medicine, they divided the tonic herbs into two classes, Superior (or Celestial) and Inferior tonics. Some Western herbalists use the terms Major and Minor tonics to describe these two classes of tonics.The Superior Tonics generally have very broad effects on a wide range of body functions; some are even believed to affect psychic and spiritual energies.More recently, researchers have coined the term "adaptogen" to describe some of these tonic herbs. They discovered that adaptogenic herbs actually have a stronger effect when the organism taken those herbs is under greater levels of stress.Ginseng is probably the most familiar tonic herb. There are several types of gins... See the complete post here
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