“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.”—Sharon Begley.

As I was being introduced to the world of herbalism, I came across these two books, Herbal Antibiotics and Herbal Antivirals. I already knew that several drugs, such as Paclitaxel and aspirin, originated from herbs. What I learned was that herbs differed from pharmaceuticals in a couple of key ways. One is that most drugs are single compounds whereas herbs contain dozens of bioactive compounds, and when they’re used to treat a condition, multiple herbs are used in combination. Supposedly, side effects that are introduced by one compound are negated by other compounds in the herbs, resulting in fewer overall side effects. The second difference concerns the dosing. Many drugs are dosed at the milligram level whereas with herbs, they need to be dosed at the gram level. However, in practice this is apparently rarely done and many herbs sold as supplements are taken in doses too small to have real physiological effect unless the delivery is a full-spectrum extract, which concentrates the dose.

Anyway, I found a clinical herbalist and she started me a variety of herbs. However, just as with technological medicine, there was “no effect detected”.