ABSTRACT
Medicines are important tools of many healing systems, particularly naturalistic systems such as Ayurveda, Unani, traditional Chinese medicine, homeopathy, and indigenous medical traditions throughout the world. The study of these medicines is called ethnopharmacology (see selections 13, 25, 31, 44; Prendergrast et al. 1998). This selection compares biomedical studies of traditional remedies, undertaken as a result of rising awareness that most of these remedies are effective and might be adopted into the Western pharmacopoeia.
