Pocket Guide to Herbal Medicine
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www.ketabdownload.com 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 h www.ketabdownload.com Pocket Guide 1 2 3 to Herbal Medicine 4 5 6 7 8 Karin Kraft, M.D. 9 Professor 10 Outpatient Clinic 11 University of Rostock 12 Germany 13 14 15 Christopher Hobbs, L.Ac., A.H.G. 16 Clinical Herbalist and Acupuncturist in Private Practice 17 Davis, California 18 USA 19 20 21 22 23 24 Foreword by Jonathan Treasure 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 Thieme 50 Stuttgart · New York www.ketabdownload.com Library of Congress Cataloging-in- Important note: Medicine is an ever- Publication Data is available from the changing science undergoing continual publisher development. Research and clinical experi- 1 ence are continually expanding our knowl- 2 edge, in particular our knowledge of proper 3 treatment and drug therapy. Insofar as this book mentions any dosage or application, 4 readers may rest assured that the authors, 5 editors, and publishers have made every 6 effort to ensure that such references are in 7 accordance with the state of knowledge at 8 the time of production of the book. 9 Nevertheless, this does not involve, imply, or express any guarantee or responsibility 10 on the part of the publishers in respect to 11 any dosage instructions and forms of appli- 12 cations stated in the book. Every user is re- 13 quested to examine carefully the manu- 14 facturers’ leaflets accompanying each drug 15 This book is an authorized and revised and to check, if necessary in consultation translation of the German edition with a physician or specialist, whether the 16 published and copyrighted 2000 by dosage schedules mentioned therein or the 17 Georg Thieme Verlag, Stuttgart, contraindications stated by the manufac- 18 Germany. Title of the German edition: turers differ from the statements made in 19 Phytotherapie the present book. Such examination is 20 particularly important with drugs that 21 are either rarely used or have been newly released on the market. Every dosage 22 schedule or every form of application used 23 is entirely at the user’s own risk and respon- 24 sibility. The authors and publishers request 25 Translator: Suzyon O’Neal Wandrey, every user to report to the publishers any 26 Berlin, Germany discrepancies or inaccuracies noticed. 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 Some of the product names, patents, and registered designs referred to in this book 35 are in fact registered trademarks or propri- 36 etary names even though specific reference 37 © 2004 Georg Thieme Verlag, to this fact is not always made in the text. 38 Rüdigerstrasse 14, 70469 Stuttgart, Therefore, the appearance of a name with- 39 Germany out designation as proprietary is not to be 40 http://www.thieme.de construed as a representation by the pub- lisher that it is in the public domain. 41 Thieme New York, 333 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10001 USA 42 http://www.thieme.com This book, including all parts thereof, is 43 legally protected by copyright. Any use, 44 Cover design: Martina Berge, Erbach exploitation, or commercialization outside 45 Typesetting by Satzpunkt Ewert GmbH, the narrow limits set by copyright legisla- 46 Bayreuth tion, without the publisher’s consent, is ille- gal and liable to prosecution. This applies in 47 Printed in Germany by Druckhaus Götz, Ludwigsburg particular to photostat reproduction, copy- 48 ing, mimeographing, preparation of micro- 49 ISBN 3-13-126991-X (GTV) films, and electronic data processing and 50 ISBN 1-58890-063-0 (TNY) 1 2 3 4 5 storage. www.ketabdownload.com www.ketabdownload.com Foreword V 1 Traditionally, Western medical knowledge from Graeco-Roman times onward 2 has been transmitted by means of authoritative printed texts. Today, both patient 3 and physician may be more likely to use the Internet as a first reference source. 4 The sheer amount of medical information available on the World Wide Web and 5 the speed of its renewal and retrieval may outpace the Caxtonian mechanics of 6 printed textbook production, but has done little to erode the authority of the Foreword 7 printed word. Conversely, in fact, major medical reference texts are these days 8 being “ported” into the memory of hand-held electronic devices or on-line data- 9 bases. This development, welcomed by gadgetry enthusiasts, eliminates the hefty 10 size and weight of the printed tome, but decreases the legibility and convenience 11 of the printed page as well as undermining the narrative qualities of the tradition- 12 al medical textbook. 13 However, another, and only slightly less illustrious tradition has long co-existed 14 with that of the major medical opus. This is the “vade mecum,” literally “go with 15 me,” intended as a portable tome to be kept on hand for immediate reference. To 16 be successful, this format requires authors to possess a high degree of intimacy 17 and fluency with their subject matter, to be able to communicate its essentials 18 with precision and confidence, compacting prose and condensing content with- 19 out sacrificing narrative. The size of the resultant printed volume must be com- 20 pact enough to make it easily portable, which nowadays translates as “pocket 21 guide.” 22 23 The present pocket guide is a medical vade mecum devoted specifically to the field 24 of phytotherapy (herbal medicine), authored by the German physician and phy- 25 totherapist Karin Kraft. Prof. Kraft is a member of the Commission E (the official 26 expert committee which originally considered the safety and efficacy of phyto- 27 medicines in Germany), and is currently a member of the supervising editorial 28 board of ESCOP (European Scientific Cooperative on Phytotherapy). ESCOP 29 produces the scientific monographs that provide the official core data for herbal 30 medicines in the EU. 31 32 In Germany, phytotherapy enjoys a higher degree of integration into general 33 medical practice than in any other European country, with physicians regularly 34 writing millions of prescriptions for approved phytomedicines on a daily basis. In 35 the original German edition of this pocket guide, Prof. Kraft provides the busy- general practitioner with a compact and practical reference guide that includes a 36 materia medica of herbs, a prescriber for many conditions, and extensive data on 37 dosage, forms of administration, safety data and technical standards for German 38 commercial herbal products. (Special mention should made of Prof. Kraft’s inclu- 39 sion of an often neglected area, that of topical applications of herbal medications 40 such as poultices and compresses, more popular in Europe than in the USA). 41 42 In North America, herbal medicine is a more marginal discipline, ultimately the 43 legacy of a period of political opposition between medical factions at the turn of 44 the 19th century which resulted in the effective outlawing of botanical medical 45 practice following the Flexner Report of 1910. Although the majority of “official” 46 medicines in the United States Pharmacopoeia were originally botanicals or bo- 47 tanically derived, there remains a sharp discontinuity between standard practice 48 medicine today and its botanical past. The once widespread schools of physio- 49 medical and eclectic botanical medicine were preserved partly through their mi- 50 gration to the United Kingdom, where an unbroken tradition today enables qual- www.ketabdownload.com VI Foreword ified British medical herbalists to diagnose and treat conditions with phyto- 1 medicines, alongside their conventional medical colleagues. The British model is 2 distinct again from the German experience and emphasizes the importance of 3 understanding different cultural and national expressions of traditional herbal 4 medicine, education, and practice. 5 Foreword 6 Sensitive to such cultural variations, Thieme wisely enlisted the aid of Christopher 7 Hobbs, a fourth-generation American herbalist, to help render the translation of 8 Prof. Kraft’s German text into the US cultural context. Hobbs, one of the most 9 highly regarded herbal practitioners in the US, addressed this challenging task by 10 reviewing every line of the text. Hobbs has replaced some herbs in the materia 11 medica, suggested more appropriate local equivalents for herbal products, and 12 annotated bi-cultural comments where relevant. He has also rewritten doses into 13 the typically higher US forms. Meanwhile, Hobbs has deftly preserved the nu- 14 ances of the German text; Prof. Kraft actively participated in, and agreed to, all the 15 changes. The result of this bi-cultural collaboration is an almost seamless repre- 16 sentation of the German original harmonized to the North American audience. 17 18 As more physicians in this country recognize the need to investigate the CAM 19 (complementary and alternative medicine) modalities that are being espoused by 20 many of their patients, a premium is inevitably placed upon reliable sources of data and clinical information about CAM. Botanical medicines in particular have 21 sadly been the subject of excessive amounts of published secondary and tertiary 22 “information” devoid of clinical context, and largely irrelevant to the primary care 23 provider. By contrast, Karin Kraft and Christopher Hobbs present us with a suc- 24 cinct and authoritative survey of herbal medicine that is accessible to the physi- 25 cian and can readily be applied to everyday clinical practice. The “pocket guide” 26 represents a unique cross-cultural and trans-disciplinary blend of reliable, accu- 27 rate, and accessible information about phytotherapy; it is a mini-masterpiece of 28 integrative medicine.