Herbal medicine, a natural therapeutic method using medical plants, is greatly differentiated from the pharmacological treatment for which various substances are made into drugs. Herbal phytotherapy is a natural therapy to prevent or treat diseases by analyzing the medical actions of certain plants and using the ingredients excellent in medical effect. Regardless of east or west, the herbal medicine has been used to keep health and cure diseases for a very long time through traditional and classical principles on life and environment. Such natural treatment began with the history of mankind: The vestiges of herb medicine are seen in the Neanderthals' tombs constructed about sixty thousand years; the medical actions of approximately 1,200 medicines are recorded in a medical lexicon published in the age of ancient Aztec Indians. China, a front-runner of Oriental medicine, has accumulated a vast amount of knowledge and clinical experience on herb medicines during the past 5,000 years. For example, Chinese Shen Nong first published a record on traditional Oriental medicinal herbs. In Korea, Heo Jun published an encyclopedia Dongeuibogam in 1613, which is composed of 25 volumes and introduces standard herb medicine prex_scription for each disease. This historical background allowed Asians to strongly trust in herb medicine treatment, which is much more weakly seen in Europeans and Americans. Accordingly, herb therapy was used as an important means to treat diseases as folk therapy as well.
In spite of the remarkable development of modern medicine, the majority of Asians and Africans are still favorably disposed toward herb medicines due to the aggressive treatment ways and the toxicity and tolerance of drugs shown by western medicine. Also, now is the time when it is required to develop natural remedies using the medicinal herbs that are helpful for preventing and treating the chronic diseases increased by life expectancy increase, diet change, hereditary factors, insufficient exercise, stress, environment pollution, etc. Besides, WHO data shows that while the rest follow complementary alternative medicine, only 30-40% of medical markets follow conventional western medicine, making it impossible to overlook the importance of herbal medicine. In economic terms, the herb medicine market has drastically expanded to that of billions of dollars throughout the world. These days, religious, sociocultural, or socioeconomic background or trust in traditional medicine makes various attempts to prevent diseases or to develop the drugs without side effect using the active substances extracted from herbs with a view to overcoming the problems or limitations of modern medicine.
Specifically, the natural treatment using medicinal herbs uses biological products, the same organic matters as those of human somatic cells. The medicinal herbs biologically activated make active substances similar in structure or energies exchanged between the molecules of the herbs and the metabolic substances of human cells. Indeed, it cannot be confirmed that no toxicity or side effect is included in the drugs using medicinal herbs, but herb medicines can minimize side effects by not accumulating toxic substances in human body, unlike artificial synthetic substances.
Additionally, the universal use of herb remedies has an expected economic effect of laying groundwork for introducing the treatment of low cost and high efficiency and thus overcoming vast medical expenses.
Herb medicines use the various parts, i.e. leaves, fruits, roots, peels, rhizomes, etc of herb plants. The development of herbal medicine preferentially requires developing the herb medicines that can be used for natural treatment and collecting and analyzing the information, such as the geographical distribution, ingredients, production amount, and effective empirical remedies.
In sexual medicine, many clinicians have got increasingly more curious about the natural treatment of sexual dysfunction using medicinal herbs or extracted natural substances, and there has been an increase in clinical demand using herbs, like other medical fields. Currently, there are a limited number of drugs whose effects are determined by scientific verification among those extracted from medicinal herbs. The herbs known to be effective for sexual improvement or erectile dysfunction treatment are ginseng, onion, garlic, Cornelian Cherry, acanthopanax senticossus, black raspberries, Epimedium koreanum, Pleuropterus multflorus, Polygonatum, Aconitum carmichaeli, etc. They are used for traditional herb medicine as extracts, herb teas, or topical gents, and for modern western medicine that tries to produce drugs by separating active ingredients within natural substances or synthesizing active ingredients chemically. Many natural substances used for treatment by natives in Asia, Africa, or Americas have become major ideas for the development of new drugs in terms of western medicine. In practice, it seems that a series of development processes, such as separation of active ingredients from natural substances, animal
study, research in vitro and clinical experiment play roles of infinite ideas for bioscience, lay groundwork for the fusion between western and oriental medicines, and provide clinical doctors with a wider variety of remedies.
The wide use of herb medicines for treatment preferentially requires the scientific verification by modern medicine analysis on treatment methods and effects and the establishment of standard clinical test directions for such verification. Additionally, it requires the understanding of countryspecific foods or medicine-related laws and the analysis and evaluation of country-specific legal applications.
It is expected that this publication of“ Modern Oriental Phytotherapy in Sexual Medicine”will be a touchstone for the study of herb medicines in the field of sexual medicine by settling the questions of sexual medicine researchers or doctors about oriental herbs, and will help sexual medical scientists select and use herb medicines by introducing the drugs on the market.
Editor-in-Chief
Nam Cheol Park, MD., Ph.D.
Busan, Korea
