Garden Spells

The history of documenting the properties of plants for medical use is as old as human literature, if not older. Burial remains of the Neanderthal peoples inhabiting what is now Europe suggest they used plants for ritual and possibly medicinal purposes (Saba, Heather. “Herbalism: A History—How the Herbalists of the Past Paved the Way for Today.” Herbal Academy, 12 Apr. 2018). The tradition of incorporating plants and herbs into remedies to treat a condition, or into formulas intended to produce a certain effect, can be traced in nearly every human culture across history.

The earliest recorded herbals date to the fourth and third millennia BCE, including texts in Sumerian, a civilization in ancient Mesopotamia, where the properties and uses of local plants were recorded on clay tablets. In early China, the evolution of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) included, among other practices, a system of remedies incorporating herbal, animal, and other products. Ayurvedic medicine, a holistic approach to health and wellness that developed on the Indian subcontinent and is still widely practiced there, advises remedies that combine plants with, sometimes, minerals, metals, and gems. The Ebers Papyrus, dating to around 1500 BCE, lists nearly a thousand herbal medicines known to physicians in Ancient Egypt.