Home Remedies – Facts or Quackery?
Myths and legends are often based on a grain of truth. So I was wondering if home remedies, alternative treatments, and folk cures might also be based on truth. First, let’s try to define the phrase home remedy.
There is no place like home
The name itself proclaims that a home remedy is, well, a remedy that is administered at home! Prescription drugs are often administered at home as 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 is outside of conventional modern medicine? I also. Let’s take a look at some options.
holistic view
The dictionary defines 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 and 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 a mixture of these, used to prevent, alleviate or cure disease, also called herbal medicine. That sounds like a good definition, although home remedies tend to be more encompassing than herbal remedies. Whats 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 plant-derived remedies on an empirical basis. Now we’re getting somewhere! The ancients practiced medicine not entirely based on plants when modern medicine was not available. Let’s dig a little deeper into the dictionary.
Finally at home
Finally we find the dictionary definition of home remedy: a simply prepared drug or tonic, often of unproven efficacy, administered without a prescription or professional supervision. So is it a remedy prepared outside the realm of modern medicine, not limited to herbs, but of unproven efficacy? I do not agree. I can prove that some of the simplest home remedies have led to some of our greatest medical advances (but that’s another article).
Is that your last answer?
Based on the above research, let us agree to define a home remedy as follows:
An experiential or even accidental remedy or cure prepared by ordinary people from herbs, plants, or other ingredients available when modern medical help was not available (or not yet used).
That’s my answer, and I stand by it!
