Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T17:41:42.644Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Pathways to Plausibility: When Herbs Become Pills

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2008

Ayo Wahlberg
Ayo Wahlberg
Affiliation:
BIOS Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science, London WC2A 2AEUK E-mail: [email protected]
Get access

Abstract

Herbal medicine has long been contrasted to modern medicine in terms of a holistic approach to healing, vitalistic theories of health and illness, and an emphasis on the body’s innate self-healing capacities. At the same time, since the early twentieth century, the cultivation, preparation and mass production of herbal medicines have become increasingly industrialized, scientificized and commercialized. What is more, phytochemical efforts to identify and isolate particular ‘active ingredients’ from whole-plant extracts have intensified, often in response to increasing regulatory scrutiny of the safety and quality of herbal medicinal products. In this article, I examine whether describing these developments in terms of a biomedical ‘colonization’ of herbal medicine, as has been common, allows us to sufficiently account for the mundane collaborative efforts of herbalists, botanists, phytochemists, pharmacologists, toxicologists and clinicians to standardize and develop certain herbal remedies. By focusing on recent efforts to industrialize and scientifically develop a ‘Western’ (St John’s Wort) and a Vietnamese (Heantos) herbal remedy, I suggest that herbal medicine has come to be not so much colonized as normalized, with herbalists, phytochemists and pharmacologists working to develop standardized production procedures, as well as to identify ‘plausible’ explanations for the efficacy of these remedies.

Keywords

colonizationherbal medicinemechanisms of actionnormalizationparadigmplausibility
Type
Articles
Information
BioSocieties , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , March 2008 , pp. 37 - 56
Copyright
Copyright © London School of Economics and Political Science 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barry, C.A. (2006). The role of evidence in alternative medicine: Contrasting biomedical and anthropological approaches. Social Science & Medicine, 62(11), 2646–2657.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Blumenthal, M. (1999). Herb market levels after five years of boom: 1999 sales in mainstream market up only 11% in first half of 1999 after 55% increase in 1998. HerbalGram, 47, 64.Google Scholar
Butterweck, V. (2003). Mechanism of action of St John’s Wort in depression—What is known? Cns Drugs, 17(8), 539–562.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Butterweck, V., Wall, A.U., Lieflander-Wulf, U., Winterhoff, H., & Nahrstedt, A. (1998). Effects of the total extract and fractions of Hypericum perforatum in animal assays for antidepressant activity. Psychopharmakotherapie, 5(3), 56–62.Google Scholar
Canguilhem, G. (1989). The normal and the pathological. New York: Zone Books.Google Scholar
Chatterjee, S.S., Bhattacharya, S.K., Wonnemann, M., Singer, A., & Muller, W.E. (1998). Hyperforin as a possible antidepressant component of hypericum extracts. Life Sciences, 63(6), 499–510.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chevallier, A. (1999). Hypericum: The natural anti-depressant and more. London: Souvenir.Google Scholar
Conway, P. (2003). Understanding St John’s Wort. Gloucestershire: First Stone Publishing.Google Scholar
Davidson, J.R., Gadde, K.M., Fairbank, J.A., Rama Krishnan, K.R., Califf, R.M., Binanay, C. et al. (2002). Effect of Hypericum perforatum (St John’s Wort) in major depressive disorder—A randomized controlled trial. Journal of the American Medical Association, 287(14), 1807–1814.Google ScholarPubMed
De Smet, P., & Nolen, W. (1996). St John’s Wort as an antidepressant. British Medical Journal, 313(7052), 241–242.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ethnomedica (1999). Remembered remedies—Researching the herbal traditions of Britain. URL (accessed March 2006): www.rbgkew.org.uk/ethnomedica/Google Scholar
Gaedcke, F., & Steinhoff, B. (2002). Herbal medicinal products. Washington, DC:CRC Press.Google Scholar
Gobbi, M., & Mennini, T. (2005). St John’s Wort and its active principles in depression and anxiety—A critical analysis of receptor binding studies. In Muller, W.E. (Ed.), St John’s Wort and its active principles in depression and anxiety. Basel: Birkhauser.Google Scholar
Select Committee on Science and Technology (House of Lords) (2000). Complementary and alternative medicine. London: Stationery Office.Google Scholar
Harshberger, J.W. (1896). The purposes of ethnobotany. Botanical Gazette, 21,146–154.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heilpflanzen-Welt (2005). German Commission E monographs., URL (accessed on November 2005): www.heilpflanzen-welt.de/monographien/texts/german_commission_e_monographs_introduction.htm.Google Scholar
Heinrich, M., Barnes, J., Gibbons, S., & Williamson, E.M. (2004). Fundamentals of pharmacognosy and phytotherapy. Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone.Google Scholar
Impact(2000). Heantos—A ticket out of hell. Denmark: DR TV Documentary.Google Scholar
Jagtenberg, T., & Evans, S. (2003). Global herbal medicine: A critique. Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 9(2), 321–329.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Janes, C.R. (1999). The health transition, global modernity and the crisis of traditional medicine: The Tibetan case. Social Science & Medicine, 48(12), 1803–1820.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kaptchuk, T.J. (1983). The web that has no weaver: Understanding Chinese medicine. New York: Congdon & Weed.Google Scholar
Kelly, B.D. (2001). St John’s Wort for depression: What’s the evidence? Hospital Medicine,62(5),274–276.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kenny, M.G. (2002). A darker shade of green: Medical botany, homeopathy, and cultural politics in interwar Germany. Social History of Medicine, 15(3), 481–504.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kim, J. (2006). Beyond paradigm: Making transcultural connections in a scientific translation of acupuncture. Social Science & Medicine, 62(12), 2960–2972.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuhn, T.S. (1962). The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago, London:U Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lawson, N. (2000). Wort’s up, Doc?, The Observer (London), 5 March.Google Scholar
Linde, K., Ramirez, G., Mulrow, C.D., Pauls, A., Weidenhammer, W., & Melchart, D. (1996). St John’s Wort for depression—An overview and meta-analysis of randomised clinical trials. British Medical Journal, 313(7052), 253–258.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Maelicke, A., & Lubbert, H. (2002). DEPD, a high resolution gene expression profiling technique capable of identifying new drug targets in the central nervous system. Journal of Receptor Signal Transduction Research, 22(1–4),283–295.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McIntyre, M. (1988). Herbal medicine for everyone: A guide to the theory and practice of herbal medicine. London: Arkana.Google Scholar
Mills, S. (1993). The essential book of herbal medicine. London: Arkana.Google Scholar
Monmaney, T. (1998). Remedy’s US sales zoom, but quality control lags. LA Times, 31 August.Google Scholar
Müller, W.E. (Ed.) (2005). St John’s Wort and its active principles in depression and anxiety. Basel:Birkhäuser.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Müller, W.E., Singer, A., Wonnemann, M., Hafner, U., Rolli, M., & Schafer, C. (1998). Hyperforin represents the neurotransmitter reuptake inhibiting constituent of Hypericum extract. Pharmacopsychiatry, 31, 16–21.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nash, J.M., & Cray, D. (1997). Nature’s Prozac? Time, 22 September.Google Scholar
Noldner, M. (2005). Comparative preclinical antidepressant activity of isolated constituents. In Muller, W.E. (Ed.) St John’s Wort and its active principles in depression and anxiety. Basel:Birkhauser.Google Scholar
Parry, B. (2004). Trading the genome: Investigating the commodification of bio-information. New York, Chichester: Columbia UP.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pham, N.T. (1965). Interview with Doctor Pham Ngoc Thach, Minister of Health. In Nguyen, V.H.Hoang, D.C.Vu, C. &Nguyen, P.C.(Eds) Health organization in the DRV. Hanoi:Xunhasaba.Google Scholar
Richter, R.K. (2003). Herbal medicine: Chaos in the marketplace. New York:Haworth Herbal Press.Google Scholar
Rosenthal, N.E. (1998). St John’s Wort: The herbal way to feeling good. New York: HarperCollins.Google Scholar
Suzuki, O., Katsumata, Y., Oya, M., Bladt, S., & Wagner, H. (1984). Inhibition of monoamine-oxidase by hypericin. Planta Medica, 50 (3), 272–274.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Suzuki, O., Katsumata, Y., Oya, M., Chari, V. M., Vermes, B., Wagner, H., & Hostettmann, K. (1981). Inhibition of type A and type B monoamine oxidases by naturally occurring xanthones. Planta Medica, 42(1), 17–21.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Timmermann, C. (2001). Rationalizing ‘folk medicine’ in interwar Germany: Faith, business, and science at ‘Dr. Madaus & Co’. Social History of Medicine, 14(3), 459–482.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tran, K.D. (1999). The development of Heantos. Personal communication, 29 September, Hanoi.Google Scholar
Tran, V.S. (2004). Standardisation of Heantos. Personal communication, 10 November, Hanoi.Google Scholar
UNDCP (UN Drug Control Programme) (2001). Correspondence between UNDCP and UNESCO on Heantos. 20 November.Google Scholar
UNOPS (UN Office for Project Services) (1999). International scientific development of the anti-drug medication HEA(N)TOS—main phase, Project Document. Copenhagen, Denmark.Google Scholar
Vietnam Institute of Chemistry (1999). Compilation of documents on the findings of the ongoing re-evaluation of the safety and efficacy of the anti-drug medication Heantos. Hanoi:National Center for Natural Science and Technology.Google Scholar
Vietnam Institute of Chemistry (2001). Report on the scientific research results of the Heantos project in the period January to December 2001. Hanoi: Institute of Chemistry.Google Scholar
Vietnam Institute of Orthopedics Science and Rehabilitation for Wounded Veterans and Invalids (1996). Report no. 003 regarding Comments on Heantos. Hoang Long Rehabilitation Centre, 4 August.Google Scholar
Wahlberg, A. (2006). Bio-politics and the promotion of traditional herbal medicine in Vietnam. Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine 10(2), 123–147.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wahlberg, A. (2008). Above and beyond superstition—Western herbal medicine and the decriminalising of placebo. History of the Human Sciences, 21(1), 77–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watt, J., & Wood, C. (1988). Talking health: Conventional and complementary approaches. London:Royal Society of Medicine.Google Scholar
Wessjohann, L. (2005). Phytochemistry of Heantos. Personal communication, 5 December, Halle.Google Scholar
WHO (World Health Organization) (2002). Traditional and alternative medicine. Fact Sheet No. 271, Geneva.Google Scholar