The Side-Effect Challenge: Whole Plant Medicines Vs. Drug Counterparts

(NaturalNews) Quinine was first isolated from Peruvian Bark (aka: Chinchona, Quina) in 1820. It took until the early 1900’s for it to really become a world-wide popular drug for malaria. It was a wonderful drug for a while. It cured malaria and took the danger out of this disease.

It really only lasted as a wonder drug for malaria for about 50 years. Malaria became quinine-resistant and quinine may not work at all today. The malaria germ adapted to quinine.

Today, it is more likely that you will be prescribed quinine if you have leg cramps. If you get malaria, they will probably look at other drug options.

The interesting thing about this is that Peruvian Bark works as good today as it did 1000 years ago. There are no strains of malaria resistant to Peruvian Bark, only to the isolated quinine.

In addition to this apparent disadvantage of the stronger isolated drug, there are no known side-effects of Peruvian Bark.

According to (www.Drugs.com) , quinine can cause life-threatening side-effects, including: uneven heart rhythm, weak pulse, fainting or collapse, fever, confusion, weakness, pale or yellowed skin, dark colored urine, unusual muscle weakness, purple spots under the skin, urinating less than usual or not at all, severe blistering, peeling, rashes, sore throat, fever, severe nausea, vomiting, stomach pain, diarrhea or hearing and vision problems.

You are likely to be warned about the dangers of both drugs and herbs by a medical profession that is trained to believe in atomism. In order to understand the following discussion, we need to define that word and its opposite.

Atomism is the idea that the body can be reduced to its parts and manipulated. This is built on the idea that any action upon the body must be the action of an isolated chemical.

The opposite of this is vitalism. Vitalism is the concept that the body is a synergistic intelligence that learns and has learned the art of interacting with intelligent nature in the most beneficial way that is always more than the sum of the parts (or the sum of actions of isolated chemicals).

Vitalists believe that there is an enormous difference between manipulating the body using isolated chemicals (drugs) and using whole plant foods that are also intelligent entities with all the complexities of life. Continue the full article >>