Home remedies – facts or quackery?
Myths and legends are often based on a grain of truth. So I wondered if home remedies, alternative treatments, and folk cures might not also be based on truth. First, let’s try to define the term home remedies.
There’s no place like home
The name itself proclaims that a home remedy is a remedy administered at home! Prescription drugs are often given as home remedies, so we need to dig a little deeper. When you think of home remedies, don’t you think of some type of cure or treatment that’s outside of mainstream modern medicine? I also. Let’s take a look at some choices.
The holistic view
The dictionary defined holistic medicine as an approach to health care that emphasizes the study of all aspects of a person’s health, including physical, psychological, social, economic, and cultural factors. The holistic definition is very broad and could apply to many medical approaches.
Peaches & Herbs?
Many people associate herbs with home remedies. The definition of herbal remedy is a plant or part of a plant, or an extract or mixture thereof, used to prevent, alleviate, or cure a disease, also known as herbal medicine. That sounds like a good definition, although home remedies typically encompass more than herbal remedies. What’s next?
folk medicine
Folk medicine is defined as traditional medicine, especially when practiced by people isolated from modern medical services, and usually involves the use of herbal remedies on an empirical basis. Now we’re going somewhere! The old-timers practiced medicine that was not strictly plant-based when modern medicine was not available. Let’s delve a little deeper into the dictionary.
Finally at home
Finally, we find the dictionary’s definition of home remedy: a simply prepared drug or tonic of often unproven efficacy, administered without a prescription or professional supervision. So – it’s a remedy made outside the realm of modern medicine, it’s not limited to herbs, but unproven efficacy? I do not agree with you. I can prove that some of the simplest home remedies have led to some of our biggest medical breakthroughs (but that’s another article).
Is that your definitive answer?
Based on the research above, let’s agree to define a home remedy as follows:
An experience-based or even accidental remedy or cure prepared by common folk from herbs, plants, or other available ingredients when modern medical aid was not available (or had not yet been developed).
That’s my answer and I’m sticking with it!
Thanks to Doug Smith
