PanAmerican University of Natural Medicine & Sciences

MY botanical application of physiology and pharmacology is biased towards vitalist philosophy known to herbalism and eclectic medicine in the 19^th century. Therapeutic Herbs are well chosen based on a long history of beneficial use and recorded herbal lore. Therapeutic herbs work rather poorly within the current medical/drug model; they neither block, shock, nor suppress physiologic functions. Herbs are generally ignored until demand at the market place forces a drug company to examine potential profit, or lure government agencies to forbade its use.

The best that can be said for common knowledge is that they modulate abnormal physiology back to homeostasis, used in weak (by allopathic standards) doses, effectively in homeopathic parlance, mother tinctures Ø (10% drug strength), to 1x (1:100) to even 2x dilution in simple herbal teas. We use the vital sciences to define constitutional, environmental and life-style factors in relation to illness. Since we cannot CREATE a new physical state, only God does, we only modulate existing potentials within the human body by using herbal and mineral dilutions and powders. With herbs, we try to STIMULATE native resistance, tone the body with tonics, STIMULATE blood flow to congested organs, unlock vascular beds where congestion (both lymphatic and vascular), drain the toxins and remove the impediments, re-establish the body’s microbial ecology, stimulate ATP production (with tonics), modulate the physiology with glycosides (and sometimes alkaloids); and to understand the factors that compromise homeostasis. 

The focus of vitalistic herbal therapy is a spectrum: 

1. on self-limiting and acute disorders, 
2. chronic and functional disorders, and 
3. the subclinical imbalances that are not "ripe" enough to warrant a medical diagnosis but that compromise general health and that may in time lead to disease. 

Regular Medicine uses procedures in intervening when native medicines and remedials have proved inadequate, e.g. in cancer, cataract, tumors, diabetes, renal failure, etc. The use of herbs by vitalists works by understanding the cell functions, cofactors and physiology of native strengths and weaknesses in order to extend them and recuperate the body from illness and imbalance. By imbalance, I mean, failure to adapt, to succumb to the stresses of life. Hence, I extend these vitalistic definitions, while being accurate in terms of today’s clinical practice, and may seem to emphasize strange notions, perhaps unknown aspects to the mundane mind, to those not educated on vitalistic principles of humoral medicines known to the ancients; but suffice to say, this IS vitalistic philosophy of medicine. Thus these coures on Herbal Philosophy are in print for study by students of vital herbalism as a profound benefit to humanity.

It's all a journey, this process of trying to help sick people with the ancient knowledge. The great arrogance of modern medicine is that it claims to be scientific in spite of its failures. I speak not of modern surgery, as they follow the rules of science and bring great benefit to mankind. Medicine however, ever since it peered into the microscope, into the unknown, ignored the ancient teachings and invented its own paradigm with bugs and drugs.  When molecules mix with emotions and spirit, however, medicine becomes an art just as much of as a science. The vitalist principles are ancient, and time tested, drugs are experimental and generally toxic. 

As medical doctor, I have no problem using drugs when they save lives, that is what they are for and to that we can thank modern science and pharmacy. But when a profession becomes bigoted, as medicine has amply displayed for more than one hundred years, it loses its credibility, becomes blind in its arrogance, and changes and truth will override it.

Doc, August, 2019 

Nevis, West Indies