Encyclopedia of Medicinal Plants (In 2 Volumes)

Medicinal herbs, ignored during some ages and even dismissed in others, have been waiting quietly and patiently for several thousand years for humanity to turn their eyes to them in order to know, to study, to use and-why not?-to love them.  After a period of brilliant scientific developments in which therapy science-the science of healing-has built all its hopes on the basis of sophisticated laboratories and highly technological devices, the interest in Nature’s simple remedies is quickly growing. It is not only an interest in plants, but also in water (hydrotherapy), in sun (heliotherapy) and in medicinal use of muds and clays (geotherapy).  All human beings need some help for their many diseases and illnesses, and this help presently comes from nature, from simple country herbs.  These humble plants, that almost forgotten wild tree, the "simples"-a former name for medicinal herbs-hide the best medicines that Nature may offer for mankind’s health.  When you, dear reader, go out to the countryside, please do not dismiss any of the things that seem to be simple; any of those humble plants.  Rather, look at them with respect and consideration, since many medicines come from them.  And if you truly believe in that God of love who created life, then raise your eyes to the sky in a greeting, for He provided us with so many good herbs, able to cure our diseases and alleviate our aches, thus easing our life.  So wide and diverse is the plant world, so many of them have been discovered and so many are still unknown among almost 400,000 vegetable spices living on planet Earth, that in this work we merely take a shy and brief look at the vast ocean of knowledge of botany and phytotherapy.