In the ancient past, women were the gatherers of food. As they gathered and ate the plant life that surrounded them, they found that each plant seemed to have an effect on the body. They learned that some would heal and some could harm. These women remembered what plants affected them and in what way. This accumulated knowledge was said to be passed from mother to daughter, generation to generation, as an oral tradition.

The oldest known written records of herbal information are said to be found in China, Egypt and India. There is an ancient Chinese herbal written in 3737 B.C.E. that contains over 300 herb formulas and healing remedies. The Chinese also used what were called oracle bones. The names of plants and the diseases they would help were written on these bones. Three Chinese Emperors were said to have an influence on the advancement of herbal knowledge. Fu Hsi was the theorist for yin and yang. The male and female need to be in balance for good health. Agriculture and herbal medicine were said to be a development of the Emperor Shen Nung. Somewhere between 2697 and 2595, the Emperor Huang Ti is said to have written Nei Ching. This book on herbal medicine is still in use in China to this day.

India uses the system of Ayurveda, an ancient medical program. Earliest writings of this system date circa 2500 B.C.E. The idea behind Ayerveda is that all creatures can heal themselves. This system is found the writings of the ancient scriptures known as the Vedas. It is a system of balance that includes exercise of the body and mind, diet and environment. Many common herbal remedies of today are said to be in these texts. The structure of the culture of the Hindu people may also be found in these ancient writings.

According to ancient clay tablets, herbal knowledge showed a corresponding development in China, Assyria, Egypt, Sumeria, and India. In 2300 B.C.E., Egypt's Queen Mentuhetop was said to be the first in a long line of Egyptian healing women. The first medical schools were said to be in that part of Africa. Egyptian Papyrus of 1700 B.C.E. contain many common herbal remedies.

A Hebrew woman named Zipporah is said to have learned herbal healing from the Egyptian Queens and brought the skill to her own culture. Herbal knowledge and practice was then spread through all of Africa, the Mediterranean, Greece, and Rome. The skill of healing with herbs was then said to spread across Europe, to blend into all cultures.

Hippocrates (468-377 B.C.E.) established a system of diagnoses and herbal treatments that did away with the notion that illness was from the gods. He had 2 strategies to treat the sick. Hippocrates would find a way to bring an end to the symptoms, and then help the patient back to health. He believed that the illness was still in the body, in a lesser degree, even though the symptoms of the illness were gone. After the start of treatment, the body reacted by eliminating the toxins in a reverse order. This action, according to Hippocrates, should not be interfered with, and was the natural way a body heals itself.

Ancient Greeks thought that the body contained 4 humors, or body fluids. These humors were called phlegm, blood, black bile, and yellow bile. Herbs and food items were categorized by the attributes of hot or cold, damp or dry. The Elements of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water were thought to be connected to the humors and the attributes. It was thought that one of the four humors would dominate and decided the personality type and also dictate the most typical illnesses this personality type would suffer.

Around the first century B.C.E., two men, both Romans, were to become important in the development of Western herbal medicine. The first, Pedanius Dioscorides, wrote 5 books on medicine that included the kingdoms of animal, vegetable and mineral. Around 60 B.C.E., Dioscorides, who may have been the physician to Antony and Cleopatra, wrote the De Materia Medica. This book was to become the standard herbal text for 1500 years. As time passed, the human body was seen more as a machine, that when ill, needed to be repaired. Expensive medicines and compounds were said to be the way to health. This lined the pockets of the physicians and the owners of apothecary shops.

Claudius Galenus, also known as Galen (131-199 B.C.E.) was the physician to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Galen advocated a return to the simpler use of native plant life and devised a system by reworking ideas of Hippocrates. The work of Galen then became the favorite text of the Romans and was picked up by the Arabs. Galen's work was mixed with Egyptian and Islamic influences after the fall of Rome in the 5th century. The text was still popular with physicians of Medieval times.

The Doctrine of Signatures had been developed around this time and was used until the Middle Ages. According to this principle, a plant's use may be determined by its appearance and structure. Each plant was thought to give a hint, or sign, as to what illness the plant would help. A plant with a yellow flower was thought to be good for liver problems, and an herb for healing of wounds had leaves in the shape of a shield, such as comfrey. Burdock was thought good for the hair because the burs clung so easily to hair.

The 10th century brought with it the Anglo-Saxon herbal called The Leach Book of Bald. This book, written by a monk, contained extensive herb and medical traditions of the Druids in Wales and combined them with Greek and Roman information.

Medical schools flourished through Europe. The healing arts were also a major part of the church. Agriculture and herbal knowledge was preserved by the monasteries after the fall of Rome. All monasteries were growing their own herbs and helping the sick. A treatment would include the herb selected for the healing of the illness and prayers to aid its working.

In the 10th century there was a school of medicine in Salerno Italy. This school assembled information from Europe, Persia, India, and the Far East. It incorporated all these teaching into the ideas of Hippocrates. It is also famous for its use of astrology in medicine. Astrology was said to aid in the selection of herbs and treatments of illnesses. At the time, this was the only school of healing that allowed women students. It is thought that the school was headed by a woman named Trotula, or Dam Trot.

The Salerno school instructed their students in the ways of Arab physicians. As with most herbalist, the Arabs believed that nature provided cures to all ills. They researched plants in their country and surrounding lands. The Arab physicians were also business men, opening the first pharmacies and shops as early as the 9th century. They were also the first to use astrology for diagnosis of illness and treatment.

Few individual women herbalists are known by name from past. The Christian convents throughout Europe were learning centers for the herbal arts. This freedom of herbal knowledge was said to have stopped around the 12th century. One well known woman who had herbal knowledge was Hildegard of Bingen. Hildegard (1098-1179) was a German nun who wrote music, science material and books on herbal medicine. She was born in the Rhine Valley and claimed to have seen visions and heard messages as a child.

Hildegard was said to be tutored by an unnamed women hermit and educated in a convent in Disenberg by Benedictine nuns. She was named prioress of the convent in 1136. Hildegard left the Disenberg convent in 1147 for Bingen. She became a well-known healer in her time and was the author of 2 medical books, Psysica, and Causa et Curae. These books were consulted by physicians into the 15th century. Hildegard of Bingen also wrote an herbal titled Liber Simolicis Medicinae. This book contains listings of 213 plants, 55 trees, charms and goddess magick. No other prominent woman healer emerges from history. Healing was the business of men.

This appears to be the end of women's outward involvement in healing. Many feminist writers claim women with the knowledge of herbal medicine then conducted their business in secret. It is claimed that the Inquisition and the persecution of witches sent the women healers and midwives into hiding for their safety. Some healers may have done this, but there is no historical evidence for this claim. Some historians claim many women healers actually helped the Inquisitors in their searches for victims.

Expensive and exotic herbs were still popular after the Crusades, the old folk medicine not being in favor with the learned doctors. The old traditions were perceived as a threat to the medical schools. Latin was the language of physicians taught in colleges, historians say to keep the teachings out of the hands of the common people. After 10th century, more herbals were written in native languages. This trend made herbal knowledge accessible to more people. Learning was moving from the cloisters of the monasteries to the land of the townspeople. Later, in the 1530s, Paracelsus continued to encourage the writings of medical texts in native languages and advocated a return to the Doctrine of Signatures and the use of local herbs. Paracelsus was a well known alchemist and worked on the mineral side of medical treatments. He considered the physicians from the medical schools con men that received too much money for imported herbs.

Historians say that during the passing of centuries local women herbalists, known as wise women, were acting as family physicians. During the Renaissance women were said to be making preparations, compiling notes, and passing information and recipes from mother to daughter. Every town was said to have its own wise woman the locals would visit in time of need.

A rise in herbals was seen in the 15th century as a result of the invention of the printing press. The Herball or General Historie of Plantes was published by John Gerard in 1597. This book is one of the first of the English herbals. Gerard based the book on works by a botanist named Rembert Dodens, a resident of what is now known as Belgium. Gerard was a surgeon, physician to the Tudor family, and an apothecary who kept a garden of medicinal herbs in London. He combined his own findings with that of Dodens and added 1800 woodcuts to the book. The herbal is considered a classic in herbal literature.

Nicholas Culpeper (1616-1654) translated the work of the College of Physicians into English. Culpeper tried to inform the people that there was no need to buy the expensive compounds prescribed by the physicians and sold by the apothecaries. It is safe to say the College was not pleased with Culpeper's action. Conflicts between the physicians and the local women herbalists and midwives are said to have continued into the 17th and 18th centuries.

In North America, the Native Americans had their own knowledge of herbal medicine. The settlers of this country were taught herbal medicines, how to set fractures, heal wounds and help women have safer births. The tribes each had their own shaman that claimed the herb's use was given in a vision They also thought that each plant gave a clue to its medicinal use in its appearance. It was their use of a Doctrine of Signatures. The plants introduced to the settlers include, joe-pye weed, goldenseal, may apple and sassafras.

Most of us have heard the tale of the healer woman, the unmarried woman living in a clearing in the woods. A garden of healing herbs surrounds her cabin. She is free to do as she wishes, unencumbered by a man. Many of the local people visit her for her knowledge of herbs and midwifery. Something goes wrong in the town. Suspicion grows and she is accused of witchcraft. It is said she is sentenced to die because of it. Her knowledge of herbs and her skill as a midwife are their reasons for her to die, as much as her alleged pact with the devil. How else could she have such knowledge?

It has been said that most of the accused in the Inquisition were healers. It is thought by most historians that this is not true. It is hard to say in the story of the woman/healer/midwife what is true and what is not. Much of the writing of women's history is in the hands of feminists. Many of these writers are described as radical feminists. It is claimed by generally accepted historians that there is a serious lack of detachment in judging and evaluation in the feminist view of women's history. It appears that we are expected to identify with the pain and suffering of the women accused in such a way as to hate men, and further the political causes of feminists. Much of the writing of the feminists is said to be a way for self-acceptance and pride, to regain the power of being a woman.

This, in itself, is a good idea, but male bashing is not a necessity. There is no hard evidence that the majority of women accused were healers and midwives. Many women healers are said to have actually helped the Inquisitors in their searches for witches, and many of the women healer/midwives used the folk knowledge of herbal medicines to help their family and friends throughout this period and were not accused of witchcraft.

According to feminist historians, the people singled out as witches were the women with herbal knowledge and who were sexually free, the midwife of the village. These women were denounced as witches because their knowledge was perceived as a threat to the school-trained physicians. It is said to be a part of the continued battle that was waged by the male physicians to oust the healer women of the villages. Many of the accusers had something to gain if the woman was convicted of witchcraft. The accused were usually older women, widowed or a spinster, and wanted to live on their own. Many were semi-dependant on the community for their survival. This could put a burden on the community and was resented by the residents. Many times the gain was in property when neighbors accused neighbors. What actually happened is an ongoing debate.

The story of the witch has moved from historical to emotional. It has become a way for women of today to identify with women of the past in a search for female strength. It is a way for women to unite and to find themselves. Feminist see a correlation of the persecution of the witches in the Burning Times to the struggle of today's women. Today we are struggling for women's rights and the right to control our own bodies. Physically abused and mentally battered women need to see that there is a way back. For many, the way back is made easier by identifying with others who were persecuted in the past. Many women of today, struggling to make sense of the world, find strength with the myths of the witch. She is the woman with the power to heal, not only the mind and body, but she is also healer to the earth.