09/06/2026
This has been burning inside of me to share for quite a while now, and I’ve gone back and forth about putting it into words. So please bear with me, because this is a long one—but it’s something I feel deeply about, and I think it’s a conversation worth having.
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If you’ve ever dismissed medicinal plants as outdated, unscientific, or nothing more than old folklore, you might want to go WAYYYYY down this rabbit hole…
Plants didn’t suddenly develop medicinal properties when scientists discovered, isolated or named the compounds inside them.
The chemistry was already there.
Long before modern pharmaceutical manufacturing, humans were learning which roots, leaves, flowers, seeds, berries and barks affected the body.
Before aspirin, people were using willow bark. Willow contains salicin and related salicylates.
Before digoxin, there was foxglove—a plant containing extremely powerful cardiac glycosides.
Before quinine was isolated, cinchona bark was being used.
Long before artemisinin became one of the world’s important antimalarial drugs, sweet wormwood (Artemisia annua) had a history of use in traditional Chinese medicine.
The o***m poppy existed before morphine and codeine were isolated from it.
Pacific yew existed before paclitaxel, better known by the original brand name Taxol.
Madagascar periwinkle existed before vincristine and vinblastine.
We didn’t invent those plants.
And we didn’t invent the chemistry inside them.
We learned how to identify it, isolate it, study it, standardize it and, in some cases, turn particular constituents into medicines.
But the plant came first.
And this story is much bigger than the plants that eventually became sources for pharmaceutical drugs.
Take DANDELION.
Most people see it growing through their lawn and immediately think:
W**d.
But dandelion is a chemically complex plant containing naturally occurring compounds including flavonoids, phenolic compounds and sesquiterpene lactones.
And even the different parts of the same plant aren’t chemically identical.
The root isn’t exactly the same as the leaf.
The leaf isn’t exactly the same as the flower.
Then start looking at other familiar plants.
St. John’s wort contains compounds including hyperforin and hypericin.
Turmeric contains curcuminoids.
Ginger contains gingerols and shogaols.
Garlic produces allicin and contains numerous other sulfur compounds.
Peppermint contains menthol along with other volatile compounds.
Plants aren’t “just plants.”
They’re incredibly complex living chemical systems.
And this is where conversations about herbal medicine often become oversimplified.
Using a whole plant preparation isn’t necessarily chemically equivalent to isolating ONE constituent from that plant, concentrating it, standardizing it and administering it as a drug.
A plant may contain dozens—or even hundreds—of naturally occurring constituents interacting within the same material.
That doesn’t automatically make the whole plant better.
It doesn’t automatically make it safer.
And it certainly doesn’t mean every traditional use has been scientifically proven.
But it DOES mean that dismissing medicinal plants as though they’re chemically inactive makes absolutely no sense.
Now take that rabbit hole and bring it home to CANADA.
Because our history with medicinal plants goes back much further than Canada itself.
Long before Confederation in 1867, Indigenous Peoples across the lands now called Canada had sophisticated traditions involving local plants, foods, preparations and healing practices.
That knowledge wasn’t invented by European medicine.
It existed here already.
During the 1600s and 1700s in New France, historical records show exchanges of medicinal and pharmaceutical knowledge between Indigenous Peoples and European newcomers. Missionaries and settlers encountered both Indigenous healers and Indigenous knowledge of local plants.
And here’s an uncomfortable but incredibly important part of Canadian medical history:
That knowledge was not simply absorbed equally into the medical institutions that later developed.
As British medical institutions became established in Canada, European models of medical education became dominant, while Indigenous healing traditions were largely left outside formal medical education.
So if you really want to understand how Canada went from generations of community and plant knowledge to the medical system we recognize today, you have to follow another rabbit hole:
The professionalization of medicine.
In colonial Canada, there wasn’t always one clearly defined medical system.
People relied on family remedies, traditional healers, Indigenous medicine, midwives, apprentices, physicians and people selling or practising various forms of botanical and other medicine.
Medical practice gradually became increasingly regulated.
Medical societies formed.
Licensing became more important.
Universities became increasingly involved in physician training.
Laboratory science expanded.
And by the late 1800s and early 1900s, Canadian medicine was undergoing a massive transformation.
Then came 1910.
THE FLEXNER REPORT.
And here’s where the Canadian story gets really interesting.
The report wasn’t actually called a report on American medical education.
Its full subject was medical education in the UNITED STATES AND CANADA.
Abraham Flexner examined medical schools across North America for the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
At the time, Canada had eight medical schools.
Flexner considered McGill and the University of Toronto the strongest Canadian schools.
Others received significantly more criticism.
The report pushed the broader North American movement toward rigorous admission standards, university-based medical education, laboratory science, scientific research and strong affiliations with teaching hospitals.
But there’s an important difference between what happened in Canada and what happened south of the border:
None of Canada’s eight medical schools closed because of the Flexner Report.
Instead, Canadian schools underwent enormous reform.
Schools strengthened their university affiliations.
Laboratory sciences expanded.
Standards increased.
Teaching hospitals became increasingly important.
And by 1928, all of the Canadian medical schools evaluated in that earlier era had achieved Class A standing.
Then follow the MONEY.
Because this part of Canadian history is rarely talked about outside medical-history circles.
In 1920, the Rockefeller Foundation announced major financial support for medical education in CANADA.
McGill University — $1 MILLION.
University of Toronto — $1 MILLION.
Dalhousie University — $500,000.
University of Manitoba — $500,000.
The University of Alberta and Université de Montréal also received support during their development and reorganization.
Those were enormous sums of money at the time.
And that funding helped Canadian universities expand laboratories, buildings, teaching facilities, research and the new model of scientifically based medical education.
So no—the Canadian story isn’t simply:
“Rockefeller came in and shut down herbal medicine.”
History is considerably more complicated than that.
But something enormous WAS happening.
Medical knowledge was becoming increasingly professionalized, regulated, institutionalized and centred within universities, laboratories and hospitals.
At the same time, chemistry, bacteriology, pharmacology and industrial pharmaceutical manufacturing were advancing incredibly quickly.
Within a relatively short period of history, the way Canadians learned about health and medicine changed dramatically.
And meanwhile, another kind of knowledge was becoming easier to lose.
The knowledge that once lived in families.
The plants a grandmother recognized.
The roots people knew how to prepare.
The leaves someone gathered at a particular time of year.
The remedies passed from one generation to another.
And, most importantly in the Canadian story, the enormous bodies of plant and healing knowledge held by Indigenous Peoples for generations before Canada was even a country.
Think about that.
How many Canadians today can name ten medications?
Probably quite a few.
Now ask how many can identify ten medicinal plants growing in their own province.
How many know which part was traditionally used?
Root?
Leaf?
Flower?
Bark?
Seed?
When was it harvested?
How was it prepared?
Tea?
Decoction?
Poultice?
Oil?
Tincture?
Salve?
And THAT is the part I find fascinating.
How did knowledge about the natural world immediately surrounding us become something many people consider “alternative”?
When did knowing plants become strange?
When did recognizing a medicinal plant become less normal than recognizing a pill?
None of this means rejecting modern medicine.
Modern medicine has accomplished extraordinary things.
It also doesn’t mean “natural” equals safe.
Foxglove is the perfect example of why that thinking can be dangerous.
Medicinal plants can have contraindications.
They can interact with medications.
Some can cause serious toxicity.
Some can be deadly.
Their ability to affect human physiology is exactly WHY they deserve respect rather than romanticization.
Herbalism doesn’t need the claim that every plant cures everything.
It doesn’t need the claim that traditional knowledge and modern pharmaceuticals are interchangeable.
And it certainly doesn’t need the claim that everything natural is harmless.
The real history is fascinating enough.
So start asking different questions.
What is the original plant?
How was it traditionally used?
WHO used it?
Which part of the plant was used?
How was it prepared?
What compounds have researchers identified?
What happens when one compound is isolated from the whole plant?
What does modern research support?
What hasn’t been established yet?
What medicinal knowledge existed in Canada before Confederation?
What knowledge existed here before European settlement?
How did Indigenous Peoples understand and use the plants growing on these lands?
How did Canadian medical education change during the late 1800s and early 1900s?
What did the Flexner Report actually say about Canadian schools?
Where did the Rockefeller Foundation put its money in Canada?
And how did medicine move from homes, communities and apprenticeships toward universities, laboratories, hospitals and regulated professions?
Those are MUCH more interesting questions than:
“Is herbalism woo woo?”
Because before the pharmaceutical company…
Before the modern laboratory…
Before the standardized bottle…
Before the prescription…
Before Canada itself…
There was the plant.
And there were people who knew how to use it.
THAT is a Canadian rabbit hole worth going down. 🐇🕳️
