A model on how to obtain data from botanical practitioners.

OBJECTIVE: This paper addresses the challenge on how to obtain information from practitioners with experience in using medicinal plants.

BACKGROUND: Collecting information on medicinal uses of plants is very challenging; since botanical remedies are used within the context of multiple differing medical systems, practitioners differ in training from Western physicians and scientists, and active ingredients of botanicals vary with preparation method, growth, and harvest conditions.

DESIGN/METHODS: A model on how useful data on safety and efficacy can be obtained from botanical practitioners is presented, based on methods developed by the association of anthroposophic physicians in Europe, a system of integrative medicine which includes the use of botanicals and is practiced mostly by medical doctors.

RESULTS: Decades of experience by hundreds of practitioners are summarized and made accessible in a manual, which alphabetically lists the most commonly used botanicals and describes the most successful therapeutic experiences which could be confirmed by several of the contributing practitioners.

CONCLUSIONS/RELEVANCE: This approach of continuous, multilingual systematic collection of successful therapeutic experiences within a community of practitioners with similar goals and a common therapeutic framework can be used not only for the training of successful future botanical practitioners, but also for helping to identify promising botanicals for scientific research and to further their development, and could support their official registration with governing bodies in countries of their use. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled "Botanicals for Epilepsy".