DURING the four-year course in pharmacy in Egypt years ago, my colleagues and I were required to take a paper entitled Pharmacognosy. The subject actually deals with the science of natural resources especially plants and herbs, and their application in medicine.
I remember spending long hours in the laboratory analysing and documenting the morphology of these materials. For the practical examination, we were given unlabelled specimens to identify.
Using the microscope and running through standard chemical analyses, we had to differentiate between the pounded seeds of fennel and caraway, the pulverised barks of cinnamon and cinchona, or the powdered leaves of senna and foxglove.
Rightly or wrongly, nowadays pharmacy students are not required to do this. This is in view of the flooding of the market with drugs of synthetic origin.
Naturally, experts in the areas of pharmacognosy, phytochemistry and its sister science, medicinal chemistry, and phytomedicine are hard to come by these days.
However, herbs are making a comeback in a big way. According to an official estimate, Malaysia imports herbs to the tune of RM1 billion annually, to cater for the RM2-billion domestic traditional medicine market.
Worldwide, the phytomedical and nutraceutical industry incurs sales estimated at more than US$10 billion (RM38 billion) yearly.
A revival of interest in the medicinal properties of herbs can be seen in the local healthy lifestyle market. Walk into any reputable store and you would be enticed by the range of herbal products available.
Likewise, garlic drinks, ginger ale, pegaga shakes and tamarind juice have now become common nutritional supplements. Even the mamak stall has not been spared the Tongkat Ali teh tarik craze.
Thus, when the New Straits Times Press (M) Bhd launched the National Herb Garden Education Project recently, the move received a warm welcome all around.
The project aims to familiarise students with numerous local herbs through hands-on experience. To start with, they would be encouraged to set up herb gardens in their schools.
Through this and other practical approaches, students would learn about the scientific properties of herbs and their uses either in medicine and cosmetic or for culinary purposes.
Not surprisingly, the Third National Agricultural Policy (1998-2010) unveiled late last year also identified herbal products as one of the main focus areas for research and development.
This is because even though Malaysia has rich and biologically diversified natural resources, the country has to rely on imports.
There are about 27,000 species of herbal plants locally, 1,230 of which are believed to have some kind of medicinal value. Others may have nutritional value or be a source of aromatic oils, oleoresins and food additives.
Man’s efforts to derive medicines from nature invokes many interesting stories and tales. For example, over two millennia ago the Greeks used extracts of Salix, otherwise known as willow barks, for the treatment of gout and pain.
This remedy was lost during the Christian era when St Augustine declared that pain was due to demons and was a punishment from God, and therefore Salix preparations should not be used.
It has also been found that early American Indians had used willow preparations in their medicines.
There is no indication that willow preparations were used in Europe again until around 1750 AD when Dr Edward Stone, an English physician, heard of an old folk remedy made from willow extract.
When he tried it on his patients, it worked wonderfully. The active agent was later identified and given the name salicylic acid, a name derived from Salix. Then in 1838, salicylic acid was successfully synthesised in the laboratory.
Salicylic acid was, however, found to produce stomach irritation and induce nausea. Finally, in 1898, a chemist named Hoffman devised a chemical reaction known as esterification to convert this acid into a more palatable form.
Thus acetylsalicylic acid, better known as aspirin, was born. For many years before the introduction of paracetamol, aspirin was the most important analgesic or painkiller available over-the-counter, that is without a doctor’s prescription.
There was a time when the amount of aspirin consumed in the United States totalled almost 50 million tablets daily.
Herbal medicine is often taken lightly by a section of medical doctors. Suggestions that such and such plant materials may have certain curative properties are prematurely put down as hoaxes.
Frankly, herbal and modern medical practitioners need to understand each other better.
As a start, it is vital that modern medicine stop demanding that herbal preparations be subject to the rigorous scientific and clinical studies required of new drugs before they are marketed.
Similarly, herbal medical specialists should reciprocate and stop claiming that their products are magic bullets that can cure all. They should instead talk of diseases in terms of imbalances of the elements in the body and how their products can help correct them.
Most importantly, modern and herbal medicine must put the well-being of their patients above anything else. Although miles apart in philosophy, the two may have to join hands for the patient’s sake.
In view of these, the Third National Agricultural Policy is proposing that the realm of herbal products is worthy of a revisit. With strategic approaches and innovative action plans, this area may well be on its way to becoming one of Malaysia’s future cash cows.