The Business of Herbal Medicine

One evening, a slightly overweight middle-aged man came to a free herb clinic started by students of herbalist Rosemary Gladstar. This clinic was held once a month in the working class town of Barre in central Vermont. Clients would meet for an hour and a half with three herbalists-in-training about everything from depression to chronic bronchitis to arthritis. The herbalists would then provide a list of recommendations including everything from herbal teas and tinctures to baths, exercise, time in nature, changing their job.On this particular evening, one of the herbalists began the intake: a series of in-depth questions to elicit the client’s physical, emotional and spiritual health. She asked him to tell them about himself and to describe what brought him to the clinic. He was a music teacher at the nearby high school, he said. He played the trombone. This was the first time he had met with an herbalist. He had a hard time sleeping, he explained. And he just didn’t feel right in his body. He was on a journey to heal himself and had been seeking his own ways of doing this but it was costing lots of money, and he wanted some guidance. As he then described the pain in his joints and his back, he began removing bottles of supplements from his backpack, hundreds of dollars worth of herbs and vitamins that he was taking for the ailments that brought him, finally, to the clinic. While he continued talking about how, despite these supplements, he still felt ill, one of the herbalists began looking through the bottles he placed on the table, writing down what they were. She looked with increasing dismay as he continued to place supplements on the table, all purchased because they were natural.
Source :
 http://now.motherearthnews.com/story/health/the-business-of-herbal-medicine/567476737739625131533348304368544b742f726f513d3d