Around the world “barefoot doctor”-style trained herbalists tend to the people of their communities, nurturing well-being, and passing on traditional knowledge.

Our modern societies have been inundated by pharmaceuticals, and science often has a long list of issues regarding herbal medicines, as portrayed in a 2013 article published in Frontiers in Pharmacology. Nevertheless, traditional remedies have a millennia-long history in cultures around the globe and are becoming increasingly germane to those interested in more holistic and natural approaches to health care and well-being.

The authors of a 2020 worldwide study see plants as valuable and significant and “a source of research in the search for active compounds for medicine.” According to their research, “Ten percent of all vascular plants (between 350,000 and nearly half a million) are used as medicinal plants.

How do we access all this ancient wisdom?