Veterinary Herbal Medicine dates back as long as human records exist. The largest body of written veterinary herbal medical knowledge originates from it's use on horses and farm animals - this is because in history horses and large farm animals played large and important roles in human daily life. As recent as the 1960's Veterinary students were still growing and studying medicinal plants and how to use them in practice.
Early Herbal Medical knowledge was spread around the world largely by travelling monks, who were also responsible for growing and using medicinal plants. As the body of written knowledge grew, the use of medicinal plants being used on humans was also used on animals.
In those early days, the safety of using plants in medicine was largely trial and error! Thankfully, today our scientific knowledge allows us to identify the components of plants - we don't have to use pot luck to find out if a plant is toxic! Science helps us to understand how medical plants work - what are the useful components, what actions do they have on the body and what is the best way to use those plants.
Plants are made from hundreds of compounds. We now know that the vast majority of medical herb actions occur as a result of all those compounds working together. This is called "synergy" - where the sum of the actions of several compounds together is greater than the actions of the compounds alone. In contrast, pharmaceuticals are generally made from a single compound - one compound is identified and then made into a tablet or injection.
Todays traditional veterinary students mostly study only pharmaceuticals. However, Integrative Veterinarians also study Herbal Veterinary Medicine then combine their knowledge of Traditional Veterinary medicine and Veterinary Herbal Medicine. Integrative Vets have double the toolkit of therapies available to use on their patients!
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