Medicinal Plants

I found this while searching online and thought it was well worth passing on.

Without plants, most medicines you take would not exist. Over 40% of medicines now prescribed in the U.S. contain chemicals derived from plants. Historically, plant medicines were discovered by trial and error. Our ancestors noticed that aches and pains went away when they drank tea made from the bark of a willow tree. Later, scientists found that willow bark contains salicylic acid, the active ingredient in aspirin.

This process continues today. Throughout the world, including the wild places in the U.S., botanists and chemists search the plant kingdom for new medicines. They sometimes find treasures in other people's trash. For years, the native Pacific yew was burned as trash generated by logging operations in the Pacific Northwest. In 1975, a substance in its bark, taxol, was found to reduce the production of cancerous tumors.

A comprehensive search of known plants for medicinal chemicals is an enormous task. Of the estimated 250,000 plant species on earth, only 2% have been thoroughly screened for chemicals with potential medicinal use. Because native plant habitats are destroyed almost daily, many medicinally valuable plants will be gone before scientists can even investigate them.