Long long long before Big Pharma,
in that period of time called the Empirical Era (Pre-historic to 18th Century) - nature provided for much of the medicinal needs of humankind. Anthropological evidence suggests that way back Paleolithic times the Pro-Magnons used herbal medicines. Between then and now, evidence abounds: 5000 years ago, etched or painted on Sumerian slabs of clay; 3500 BC, ancient Egypt's over 700 medicinal formulas on temple walls; 2500 BC, the Chinese book on roots and grasses "Pen Tao", with 365 entries on dried medicinal plants written by Emperor Shem Sung; and ca 60 AD, the Greek physician, who recorded over 1000 medicinal plant recipes in De material medics, which formed the basis of pharmacopoeias for 1500 years. And, of course, Hippocrates, 460-380 BC, the "Father of medicine", used herbs for treatment, all listed in a compendium of 300 to 400 species. (2)

Medicinal plant use sprout out the pages of the Holy Books. In the Bible: Hyssop for purification rituals and respiratory diseases; Balm of Gilead for its soothing and wound healing resin; Fig in a starring role in the Garden of Eden, and later as poultice for boils and sores; Nari, and Mandrake. In the Koran: the palm, olive, fig, pomegranate, garlic, onion, ginger. Other Holy Book transcriptions dug up more aromatic and medicinal plants: cedar, cinnamon, musicals, coriander, myrrh, saffron, wormwood, among many others. Surveys and listings varied from 45 to 176 plant species as "Biblical Medicinal Plants."

Plants were also unholy ingredients to shamanic and witchcraft concoctions and brews. Since ancient times, psychoactive plants have provided for hallucinogenic effects, mystical experiences, religious rituals and ceremonies. Alas, also for homicidal ends.

Too, for millennia animals have utilized plants and leaves for healing needs (Zoopharmacognosy). Ancient naturalists, Aristotle, Pliny the Elder, Aelian et al have recorded animal use of plants to treat wounds, repel parasites, and neutralize poisons. (Indeed, in the medicinal forest where I live, I have watched cats and dogs seeking out plants and leaves to chew on to alleviate their veterinary discomforts.)

Since Paleolithic times, or since the creationists' Garden of Eden, plants have provided for the healing needs of mankind. Medicinal plants were never "alternative." Ancient pharma-cologists, physicians and alchemists have been pounding, grinding, boiling, distilling herbs, spices, leaves and roots for their healing recipes. Plants were the essentials, the sine qua non of the ancient apothecary's bag, foundational to all traditional healing ways.

Until . . .

The early 19th century
marks the birth of modern pharmacognosy, when German pharmacist Friedrich Sertürner isolated morphine from the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum). From thereon, the inception of the pharmaceutical revolution: the extraction and isolation of active compounds from plant roots, leaves, bark, fruits and seeds, a pharmaceutical revolution of technologies that dug deeper and deeper into elemental and molecular basis of plant pharmacology - Molecular Farming, CRISPR Gene Editing, Advanced Green Extraction, Target Expression, to name a few, along with the use of nanotechnology and plant cell bioreactors — all contributing scientific validation to plant pharma, and, inevitably, into the commerce of pharmaceuticals and into the holy grail of Big Pharma.

From that backdrop of millenia of plant medicinal use, the WHO estimates 80% of the world population, 170 of 194 member states, still rely on medicinal plants for health and healing. In developing countries, the reliance is as high as 70-95% for primary health care from over 60,000 plant species. For the most part, in developing nations, use of medicinal plants continue to be folkloric: a trove of oral traditions, culture-rooted, myth-laden, now exponentially enriched by scientific validations.

The Ecosystem of Pharmaceuticals
The medicinal ecosystem includes medicinal plants, the patent-freed generics, and the prescriptive medicines, which includes Big Pharma medicines, and interspersed within, the vitamins, minerals, fish oils, probiotics, amino acids, etc. purporting a varied range of health benefits.

Science did not render plants "alternative", rather, it provided validation. The past century has seen the enlightening effects of science on the folklore of medicinal plants, stripping off millenial layers of myth and magic. Globally, about 50,000 to 80,000 plant species are used for medicinal purposes. Approximately 25% to 40% of prescription drugs worldwide comes from plants. There are about 120 such active compounds being in current use. In the U.S., at least one ingredient in 25% of prescription medicines come from plants. Of the 252 drugs considered by the WHO as basic and essential, 11% are exclusively of plant origin, with a significant number of synthetic drugs coming from natural precursors.

With prescription medications, biologic activity is attributable to a single component, which is often plant-derived or synthesized, with single-target specificity and limited clinical utility. Medicinal plants, on the other hand, offer a wide range of biologic effects from a gang of phytoconstituents or secondary metabolites, such as flavonoids, terpenoids, alkaloids, etc etc etc with pleiotropic and synergistic effects, working their way via different mechanisms and physiological pathways or targets. It is the rare medicinal plant with a single biologic activity; rather, many exhibit a dizzying spectrum of biologic activities: antioxidant, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory, hepatoprotective, cardioprotective, neuroprotective, etc .

In the U.S. about 25% of prescription medications contain active ingredients from higher plants. Another estimate is that 60% of anti-tumor and anti-infectious drugs on the market and under clinical trial were of natural origin (Yue-Zhong Shu, 1998). (1) Approximately 121 medicinal items were developed throughout the course of the last century using traditional knowledge gathered from diverse sources.

Commerce of Big Pharma
It is the often heard trope: Big Pharma as the "Darth Vader" of the pharmaceutical industry. Another: "Profits First, Health Second." The former, no. The latter, of course; that is "the nature of the beast." Profit is the engine of commerce. Perhaps, akin to King Ferdinand II and Isabella I of Spain funding Columbus and King Charles I funding Magellan to bring back lucrative spices and gold.

It was for Big Pharma (Eli Lilly and Co., Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Roche, among many others) along with government funded research to take the deep dive into the micro-, the nano-, and the molecular of pharmaceuticals. It has made immeasurable contributions to research and development (15% to 20% of revenue, $87 billion to $100 billion annually), including clinical trials, drug delivery and formulations, and drug-safety monitoring.

Big Pharma: The Real Alternative Medicine . . . For the Rich
Indeed, the real alternative. it is to the remaining 20% of the world population that Big Pharma discoveries and innovations primarily cater to: those requiring acute, complex, and chronic disease interventions, who can afford synthetic and bio-engineered drugs and patented and regulated therapeutics, to patient populations concentrated in high-income nations, generating a $1.6 trillion global market in 2024, and projected at $2.4T. (15) Yes, trillion/s. This is the THE alternative medicine market - the wealthy and privileged, and beneficiaries of high-end health insurance.

Herbal Medicine. . . Alternative? . .. Not.
In the confused linguistics of "alternative," global health terminology is ruled and defined by Western Biomedicine, institutional powers-that-be and regulatory standard bearers, along
with educators and, sadly, doctors who all agreed to label herbal medicine as "alternative."

Today, 80% of the world's population currently use plant-derived medicines for their primary health-and-healing needs, for obvious reasons of cost, accessibility, and prevalent traditional knowledge, and the belief that medicinal plants are safer or safer, without the negative side effects of prescription medicines. And, of course, non-patentable: wild plants and naturally occurring compounds cannot be patented. In countless niches of the underserved populations, traditional plant-based medicine is not "alternative"—it is the sole accessible healthcare available.

By the sheer number of users, its millenia history of use, its foundational presence in almost all systems of traditional medicine, past and present, its immeasurable contributions to the ecosystem of prescription medicines, I posit: herbal medicine—plant pharma—is not alternative. It is a mainstay of health and healing.

In my more than 25 years of compilatory work on medicinal plants, 1,800-plus to date, I have been joyed by countless eureka moments of discovery — the beauty and the healing powers of the plants. As an artist, an odyssey into the colors and boundless beauty of the botanical world. And as a physician, it was an easy crossroad to traverse: the familiar lexicon of the medicinal plant world's phytoconstituents, biologic activities, and scientific studies.

But, alas, in the end, it leaves me disheartened: scouring through thousands of endemic and native plants unstudied and understudied, and tens of thousands of scientific studies validating the medicinal properties of plants dumped into a dustbin of medical disdain and short-lived, soon-forgotten studies.

So, again, my clarion call. Whenever possible, the study of medicinal plants should be integrated into all educational curricula: an Elementary and High School introduction into the wonderful and magical world of flora; in college, incorporate into or replace the predictably wasteful and forgettable semesters of compulsory chemistry; and in medical curriculum, a deeper dive into the study of medicinal plants, including thousands of understudied and unstudied Philippine endemic plants that will most certainly reveal to be a treasure trove of medicinal properties—as a stand-alone subject or integrated into the subject of pharmacology where the study of medicinal herbs will inevitably opens corridors into a rich world of plant science, phyto-constituents, and biologic activities — in the end, to provide enlightenment and science to the traditional healing ways of albularyos and medicos here, and traditional healers elsewhere. Perhaps, to bring medicinal plants to another crossroad, a science-validated renaissance of medicinal plant use.

I can still hope.

Additional Sources and Suggested Readings
(1)
Plants as source of drugs / SMK Rates / Toxicon, 2001; 39(5): pp 603-613 / DOI: 10.1016/S0041-0101(00)00154-9
(2)
Historical review of medicinal plants’ usage / Biljana Bauer Petrovska / Pharmacogn Rev. 2012; 6(11): pp 1-5 / DOI: 10.4103/0973-7847.95849
(3)
List of drugs by year of discovery / Wikipedia
(4)
9 Famous Examples of Drugs That Came From Plants / Integrative Medicine, 2018
(5)
Medical Botany / USDA
(6)
Medicinal plants of the Bible—revisited / Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine, 2019; 15(57) / DOI: 10.1186/s13002-019-0338-8
(7)
ANCIENT HERBS / Jeanne D'Andrea / The J. Paul Getty Museum
(8)
List of Medicines Made From Plants / Anne Marie Helmenstine, PhD / ThoughtCo
(9)
10 Ancient Medicinal Plants in the Bible / Northwest School of Aromatic Medicine
(10)
Medicinal plants of the Bible - revisited / Amots Dafni, Barbara Böck / Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine, 2019; 15(57) / DOI: 10.1186/s130020190338-8
(11)
Sacred Plants and Their Miraculous or Healing Properties / Ana Maria Rosso / Qeios
(12)
How humans learned to self-medicate with certain plants by observing animals / PBS News
(13)
Animals Using Healing Plants Is Old News, Says Classics Prof / Mind Matters
(14)
The Remarkable Medicines Wild Animals Find in Nature / Denyse O'Leary / MindMatters
(15)
Pharmaceutical Statistics 2026: The Industry by the Numbers / onetwenty

DOI: It is not uncommon for links on studies/sources to change. Copying and pasting the information on the search window or using the DOI (if available) will often redirect to the new link page. (Citing and Using a (DOI) Digital Object Identifier)