Early records show that the Egyptians used herbal medicine as far back as the 16th century BC. Likewise, in ancient Greece a herbal healing tradition rapidly gained popularity.

The so-called ‘father of medicine’, Hipprocrates, had a significant impact on the burgeoning use of herbs, practising a system of holistic medicine that focused on the person rather than the disease.

However, it was the Greek military doctor Dioscorides who wrote a book on herbal medicine, called De Materia Medica, which was to become the foundation for all subsequent materia medicas for the next 1600 years.

Galen, another Greek doctor, also wrote a major book on herbal medicine called De Simplicibus in the 2nd century, which was used up until the Middle Ages by the Islamic physicians.

The word of herbalism was carried back to Europe via the crusaders and the texts were translated in Latin. The information became much more widespread with the advent of printing, but only if you could read!

Herbal folklore was passed on from one generation to the next (by word of mouth in most cases). In the 16th century the work of John Gerard, who was greatly influenced by a scientist called Paracelsus, set his ideas pertaining to herbalism in print, and another key player of the herbal tradition appeared at the end of 1500s by the name of Nicholas Culpepper.

In the 18th century, due to the expansion of science, herbalism took a back seat in Europe but survived in the US thanks to Samuel Thomson, who set up an herbal school in the early 19th century. In the 1830s there was a revival in the UK, leading to the World Health Organisation report into herbalism stating that herbalism had a valuable role in healthcare.