Miracle Cures: Medical Science for Natural Remedies

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Rarely has a book on natural healing captured the public’s interest as quickly as Jean Carper’s Miracle Cures. A combination of no-nonsense advice and thoroughly human stories, it shot to the top of The New York Times best-seller list within days of its release. Here, an excerpt from her book and an interview with Carper offer a glimpse at the future of medicine. 

While writing and researching Miracle Cures, I was constantly surprised and impressed by the vigor of a national trend toward integrating natural remedies into mainstream medicine. This incorporation of natural medicinals and conventional medicine is happening much faster than most people realize.

This will eventually have a dramatic beneficial impact, if it has not already, on all of us personally and on the quality and cost of our health care. We are talking about major changes and reforms in a basic structure of all medical systems, from ancient to modern: the appropriate use of drugs to overcome sickness.

Here’s what surprised me most:

•  The intensity and persistence of people seeking safer, effective cures outside the conventional treatments, even in the face of resistance from establishment medicine;

• The willingness, even eagerness, of leading doctors and scientists at the very core of modern scientific medicine in the United States to explore the potential of unconventional remedies;

• The mounting scientific evidence supporting the validity and safety of natural remedies, and the extensive study and use of such natural remedies among mainstream doctors in other countries.

Much twentieth-century scientific knowledge about the powers of plant medicines comes from Germany. In that country, botanical medicines are approved as over-the-counter drugs by a government body known as Commission E, which is similar to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Doctors are also given strict guidelines on which natural remedies to prescribe for which conditions, and their expected effectiveness and safety. The natural substances are meticulously manufactured to pharmaceutical standards and clearly labeled as to their approved uses and doses, possible side effects, toxicity, and contraindications.

In many other countries, if you have a question about a natural remedy, you can get a valid answer from your doctor or pharmacist. Plenty of trained professionals oversee the rational dispersal of natural drugs. In Germany, physicians and pharmacists are required to pass tests on their knowledge of botanical medicines. They regularly prescribe and dispense natural drugs and can answer questions about their benefits and safety. Truly one of the big dilemmas in the United States is that there is no reliable medical enclave that individuals can rely on and trust to give advice on natural remedies.