The modern Western world, with the United States in the vanguard, is the first culture in recorded human history to abandon plants as the core of its medicine. And why not? When science has begun to read the secrets of the human genome and to hold out the promise of astonishing future medical breakthroughs, of what possible relevance can plant medicine be? But, in fact, we have an extraordinary amount still to learn about the therapeutic value of plants, and our progress in genome research argues, perhaps surprisingly, not that we should abandon plant medicine but that we should join it to modern medical science.

The term genome, as now commonly used, means the sum of all chromosomes in an entity. Chromosomes contain genes, and genes, among other things they do, give instructions for the production of various chemicals. As we improve our understanding of plant genomes along with our understanding of the genomes of human beings and disease-causing agents, we will be able to prevent and combat disease in ways hitherto impossible. And, in the process, we will erase the unnecessary and, indeed, harmful distinction between prescription drugs and so-called herbal supplements, many of which are plant medicines sold over the counter.

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