Did you know just how many of today’s modern medicines were actually first part of “folk” apothecaries, often handed down from ancient knowledge?
Take the heart medication digitalis (aka digoxin), for example: it’s extracted from the dried leaves of the purple foxglove plant (digitalis purpurae) and used to strengthen heart muscle contractions. The medication was “discovered” when a physician had no treatment for a patient he thought was dying and sought out a remedy from a healer, who gave him the herb.