Medicinal Plants
Medicinal Plants are used in the treatment of diseases. The active principle is usually extracted in some manner, then given internally or applied externally. In some instances the dried plant or plant part is reduced to a powder and taken internally.
Some medicinal plants are found in the wild state only, but most of them are also cultivated.
Medicinal plants have been in use since time immemorial, and at some time nearly every known plant has been tested and used medicinally, whether it possesses any healing powers or not.
The tendency at the present time is to reduce the number of drugs, and, hence, drug-yielding plants.
Not so many years ago the physician prescribed hundreds of different species of plants, while the modern physician rarely uses more than twenty-five or thirty.
Many plants still retained in the official list might as well be excluded, as they have practically no medicinal virtue.
Our most valuable medicinal plants are also poisonous, a fact well worth remembering. There are, however, many poisonous plants which are not used medicinally.
Calamus
Cubeb
Dandelion
Foxglove
Hops
Irish Moss
Licorice
May Apple
Poppy
Thyme
Tobacco