Plants That Cure: A Natural History of the World’s Most Important Medicinal Plants – from Pharmaceuticals to Herbal Remedies

Plants That Cure is a fascinating exploration of the world’s most important medicinal plants, the compounds they produce, and how they benefit the human body, demonstrating how vitally important plants are to our health and wellbeing.

Of the approximately 300,000 plants that have evolved on Earth, at least one tenth of them have been used in traditional herbal medicine or as local remedies. More recently, the application of science has proven the effectiveness of many of these plants, and enabled us to develop important medicines, often in the form of single isolated plant compounds. This fascinating and beautifully presented book explores these compounds and the plants that produce them, and how they have transformed the lives of countless people.

An extended introduction explains how our use of plants as medicines has developed from ancient times into a number of traditional systems, and into modern medicine. Plants That Cure is organised by body system and type of condition, which are illustrated with examples of compounds used to treat them and the plants that they are found in. Many of these plants have a long history of use that has been investigated, so their mechanism of action can be explained, as well as their role within the plants themselves. For other plant compounds, our modern use is a fortuitous chance discovery. Their varied stories are told, each leading to one or more type of medicine, many of which will be familiar to the reader.