Phytotherapy Health Dictionary

Botanical or herbal medicine, often with a heavy emphasis on studies and monographs and their medical implications (with virtually none from North America), and with a philosophy of “little drug” medical uses and the reliance on the European phytopharmaceutical industry (where the studies came from). No judgment here; this approach is of great value to physicians, since it offers clear implications for medical use. This approach is, however, medical and mechanistic, not vitalist and wholistic

n. medical treatment based exclusively on plant extracts and products. Plants have provided a wide range of important drugs (*taxanes among others) and current research into drugs from plants continues to be fruitful. However, it is essential that any drugs derived directly from plants should be extracted, purified, assayed, and tested before being used as medication. The use of crude plant extracts as medicines can be dangerous because seemingly identical samples of the same plant may contain widely differing amounts of the active ingredient.

the treatment of disease by plants; herbal medicine.