Dear Stephen,
Do you know if the critters develop resistance to the herbs like they do with antibiotics? Thank you and blessings.
Stephen’s response:
No they don’t. Antibiotics are a “silver bullet”—that is, they are composed of one substance alone. I go into detail about bacteria’s ability to alter their genome, physiology, etc. and their capacities for interbacterial communication to facilitate this in great detail in my book
The Lost Language of Plants (see bookstore).
However, briefly, herbs are composed of scores to thousands of substances, many of which possess synergistic functions with the other substances in them. For example, it is rare to experience the kind of side effects with herbs that pharmaceuticals possess. This is because many herbs possess substances that counteract the side effects that a single substance in the herb might possess, e.g. artemisinin vs the whole herb Artemisia annua.
It is very difficult, perhaps impossible, for a bacteria to develop resistance to such complex substances as herbs. The thousands of constituents and their synergistic actions are just too complex as opposed to a single substance like an antibiotic.
Stephen
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Stephen Harrod Buhner was an Earth poet and an award-winning author of twenty-four books on nature, indigenous cultures, the environment, and herbal medicine including the acclaimed book Healing Lyme: Natural Healing & Prevention of Lyme Borreliosis & Its Co-infections.
Stephen came from a long line of healers including Leroy Burney, Surgeon General of the United States under Eisenhower and Kennedy, and Elizabeth Lusterheide, a midwife and herbalist who worked in rural Indiana in the early nineteenth century. The greatest influence on his work, however, was his great-grandfather C.G. Harrod who primarily used botanical medicines, also in rural Indiana, when he began his work as a physician in 1911.
Stephen’s work has appeared or been profiled in publications throughout North America and Europe including Common Boundary, Apotheosis, Shaman’s Drum, The New York Times, CNN, and Good Morning America. Stephen lectured yearly throughout the United States on herbal medicine, the sacredness of plants, the intelligence of Nature, and the states of mind necessary for successful habitation of Earth.
He was a tireless advocate for the reincorporation of the exploratory artist, independent scholar, amateur naturalist, and citizen scientist in American society – especially as a counterweight to the influence of corporate science and technology.
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