Herbal Medicine

Subject Areas

• Biological Sciences
• Herbal Medicine
• Sports & exercise science

Major journal databases

• AMED : Allied and Alternative Medicine (1985-)

Complementary therapies; physiotherapy, occupational therapy, podiatry, rehabilitation, particularly in the UK & Europe.

• Medline (1966 -)

Herbal & alternative therapies information as published in mainstream medical & healthcare journals. Worldwide coverage. Database access requires your Athens username/password.

• British Nursing Index (1985 - )

Herbal & alternative therapies information as published in UK nursing journals. Database access requires your Athens username/password

• CINAHL: Cumulative Index to Nursing & Allied Health Literature, (1982-)

herbal & alternative therapies information as published in U.S. nursing journals. North America & worldwide coverage. Includes much full text.

• CAB Abstracts (1973 -)

plant science, agriculture, human health & nutrition, conservation of natural resources. Database access requires your Athens username/password.

Evidence-based resources

• Cochrane Library

Critical reviews of research-based health care. Subject-based reviews; abstracts of effectiveness of treatments.

• Herbalgram

online version of the print journal, available to Napier staff & students. Password available from NULIS

Herbal Library Includes:

- HerbMed – evidence-based resource of scientific data 
- HerbClip -  critical reviews of important news articles.
- Complete German Commission E Monographs
- Expanded Commission E Monographs
- other information from the American Botanical Council

• Bandolier : Complementary & Alternative Therapies

Reviews of clinical trials and systematic reviews in the field of CAT from Bandolier, the online journal of evidence-based healthcare

Other journal & report resources

• National Centre For Complementary & Alternative Medicine

Part of the USA National Institute of Health. Provides “CAM Index”, A complementary therapies subset of the Medline journal articles database.

• BMJ: Complementary Medicine

Series of recent articles published in the British Medical Journal.

• [ http://www.rccm.org.uk Research Council For Complementary Medicine]

Promotes & facilitates rigorous research in complementary medicine. CISCOM research article database available for a small charge.

• http://www.nrr.nhs.uk National Research Register]

Govt. commissioned health care research [DoH, Scottish Office, Welsh Office]. Database of reports of completed and active research projects.

Key Journals

Journal of ethnopharmacology

Fitoterapia

Journal of phytopathology

Journal of natural products (access available on campus only)

Phytochemistry

Phytomedicine

New phytologist

Journal of herbal pharmacotherapy - print format

Journal of essential oil research - print format

European Phytojournal See entry for ESCOP below. Access requires registration.

Other internet resources

• Intute: health and life sciences

Gateway for high quality biological &plant information; ethnobotany. Includes Bioresearch (biological); MedHist (medical history), Natural History (and Agriculture, Food and Forestry gateways. Formerly known as BIOME.

• Intute: health and life sciences - medicine

Gateway for high quality internet healthcare information; UK and worldwide (formerly known as OMNI).

Online texts

• A Modern herbal

This is a hypertext version of A Modern Herbal by Mrs M.Grieve, first published in 1931. It contains information on the medicinal, culinary, cosmetic and economic properties, cutivation and folklore of herbs.

• Missouri Botanical Garden Library

MBG library : rare books - a collection of digitised historical herbal texts from the mid 1700s onwards.

• http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/ld199900/ldselect/ldsctech/123/12301.htm House of Lords Select Committee on Science & Technology.

Sixth Report, Session 1999-2000: Complementary & Alternative medicine] Full-text of the recent House of Lords report on CAM in the UK.

Journal articles

• Of Complementary Medicine: Herbal Medicine

This article which appeared in the 16th October 1999 issue of the British Medical Journal is a good starting point for people wanting to discover more about herbal medicine.

• Herbal medicines: where is the evidence?

This article which appeared in the 12th October 2000 issue of the British Medical Journal refers to the increased public interest in herbal medicine.. Readers are directed to the location of listings of systematic reviews of clinical trials.

Associations & Institutions

• British Herbal Medical Association

The British Herbal Medical Association (BHMA) was founded in 1964 to advance herbal medicine practice in the UK, and to ensure continued statutory recognition.

• ESCOP : European Scientific Co-operative on Phytotherapy

ESCOP is an umbrella organisation representing national phytotherapy associations across Europe, especially in their discussions with European medicines regulators. Its members are thirteen national herbal medicine associations, including the British Herbal Medicine Association. Pages on this site include legislative issues, ESCOP publications (fifty monographs on different herbs), useful addresses in various countries, the free online European Phytojournal, and also a page of links, mostly to government agencies, established journals, and university departments.

• {http://www.nimh.org.uk/ National Institute of Medical Herbalists]

UK based professional association for herbal practitioners and training schools, founded in 1864.

Scottish School of Herbal Medicine founded in 1992 and dedicated to the furthering of Herbal knowledge and education." This site gives a prospectus for the School. It offers courses in Herbalism and also Clinical Aromatherapy and Massage. http://www.herbalmedicine.org.uk/rootpages/home.shtml

American Botanical Council Promotes the safe and effective use of medicinal plants and herbs. Information available on herbal medicine and news relating to medicinal plants and phytomedicines. Produces the journal “HerbalGram.” http://www.herbalgram.org Napier has online access to this journal. Please ask at a service desk for the username and password.

• Foundation For Integrated Health

Promotes the integrated delivery of safe, effective and efficient forms of healthcare, including orthodox and complementary medicine.

• University Of Exeter and Plymouth. Complementary Medicine Group

One of the main UK HE sources of research in complementary medicine. Dept headed by Professor Edzard Ernst.

Images

University of Washington. Department of Botany. Medicinal Herb Garden Images of herbs in the garden by botanical and common name. http://nnlm.gov/pnr/uwmhg

Consumer Information

MedlinePlus : Procedures and Therapies A wonderful collection of quality resources (mainly USA), aimed at consumers, on all aspects of herbal medicine. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/herbalmedicine.html

General

Phytopharmacognosy Research of the Phytochemistry and Pharmacognosy research group at Middlesex University, headed by Dr. J. Wilkinson. Focuseson the scientific aspects of herbal medicines. http://www.phytochemistry.freeserve.co.uk

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Ethnobotany

Amazon Conservation Team Home page of the Amazon Conservation Team (ACT), an American charitable organisation devoted to "helping the rainforest peoples manage and protect their cultures". This site includes information of current field projects in Brazil, Suriname, Columbia, Brazil and Costa Rica, with images and descriptions. http://www.amazonteam.org

Classic ethnobotanical texts This Web page gives access to six ethnobotanical texts as PDF documents. The page is supplied by Michael Moore of the Southwest School of Botanical Medicine. Texts included are Materia Medica of the Bella Coola and Neighbouring Tribes of British Columbia by Harlan I. Smith, Ethnobotany of the Forest Potawatomi by Huron H. Smith, Ethnobotany of the Menomini Indians by Huron H. Smith (parts one and two), Ethnobotany of the Gosiute Indians of Utah by Ralph V. Chamberlin, Ethnobotany of the Zuni Indians By Matilda Coxe Stevenson, and Ethnobotany of the Tewa Indians by Wilfred Robbins, John Peabody, and Barbara Friere-Marreco (parts one and two) http://www.swsbm.com/Ethnobotany/Ethnobotany.html

Ethnobotanical leaflets Access to full text of the current issue of Ethnobotanical Leaflets, published by the Herbarium at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, and links to back issues, which are available from Fall 1997. Each issue of Leaflets includes short articles on economic plants, as well as book reviews, news, career information, notices of meetings, a galleria botanica and links to other economic botany. http://www.siu.edu/%7Eebl

Plant Trivia Timeline This site from the Huntington Botanical Gardens provides a simple timeline illustrating major events in the botanical history of the earth and the role plants have played in human civilisation. Written by James P. Folsom, this resource aims to chronicle "the interaction between plants and humans as well as enlivening the way we view plants". http://www.huntington.org/BotanicalDiv/Timeline_org.html

Society for Economic Botany Home page of the Society for Economic Botany (SEB), a society "devoted to the past, present and future uses of plants". The site gives free access to the Society's annual report, to its Plants and People Newsletter and contents lists of its peer-reviewed print journal Economic Botany (available to download in PDF format). Further pages offer information on the Society's, constitution, activities, awards, membership, links and a professional ethics section. A student section provides listings of graduate and undergraduate programmes in ethnobotany, and a discussion forum http://www.econbot.org

Resource information on this list has been sourced from the databases of the Intute Health and Life Sciences gateway http://www.intute.ac.uk/healthandlifesciences/