Home Remedies

Science and medicine have come a long way in the last fifty years. Until the last century, doctors, pharmacists, or anyone trying to treat ailments had to work with very unpredictable chemicals derived directly from plants and animals. Quality control was impossible, so most of medicine depended on luck more than science. Then slowly, along with the scientific method, came technology and testing that perfected substances from plants and animals into predictable, controllable doses.
So why do we all, and that includes some medical professionals, always reach for the home remedy first? Teas, soups, herbs and spices, poultices, and unguents are all endowed with the magical power to turn us away from science and technology.
When I feel sick, my doctor doesn’t have to offer me magical potions because she has the real thing. Metformin, a drug used to treat diabetes, found its beginnings in the Middle Ages as French lilac. Unlike the plant extract, Metformin’s strength and purity are standardized, and it is very effective, like the many other drugs that treat diabetes. Yet check out diabetes sites on the web and you will find dozens of home remedies.
Of course, when you feel sick, getting better does seem to warrant magic, but science is more reliable. And by the way, Nature can be pretty nasty. It might cure your stomach ache while destroying your liver. Neither is Nature’s lab as clean and consistent as the scientist’s. Still, even logical, educated people turn to natural remedies in hopes of beating scientific ones. I don’t know if that’s because we all want more control over our illnesses or because we distrust science.
I am not different in that way, but I take both prescription medication and ‘natural’ remedies with a large drink of skepticism. But science welcomes skeptics, which accounts for the great progress in medicine over the last fifty years.
Nancy Sherer