Day: June 17, 2025

Last updated: October 2026. Some of the most important medicines in history started life in a meadow, a forest or a mouldy Petri dish. Willow bark, foxglove, the opium poppy and humble fungi all gave scientists the starting point for drugs still used every day. This article tells some of those stories. It also explains an important point that often gets lost online: the fact that a medicine came from a plant does not mean the plant itself, or any supplement, works the same way or is as safe. The short answer Aspirin: from willow bark and meadowsweet For thousands of years, people chewed willow bark or made teas from it. In the 1820s, scientists isolated a compound called salicin from willow, and later from meadowsweet, a plant that grows along Irish riverbanks and ditches. Salicin is converted in the body to salicylic acid, which works but is harsh on the stomach. In 1897, chemists at Bayer created acetylsalicylic acid, a modified version that was easier to tolerate. They named it aspirin, the “spir” coming from Spiraea, the old botanical name for meadowsweet. Morphine: from the opium poppy The opium poppy has been used for pain and sleep for millennia. In 1804, the German pharmacist Friedrich Sertürner isolated morphine, the first active compound ever purified from a plant. It remains one of the most important medicines for severe pain, but its history is also a stark lesson in dependence and harm. Digoxin: from the foxglove In 1785, the English physician William Withering published a study on foxglove, a plant familiar in Irish hedgerows, after learning of its use in a traditional remedy for “dropsy”, the swelling caused by heart failure. Compounds from foxglove led to digoxin, still used for some heart conditions. Foxglove is also highly poisonous: the difference between a helpful and a toxic amount is small, which is exactly why careful dosing matters. Quinine: from cinchona bark The bark of the South American cinchona tree was used to treat fevers and became the first effective treatment for malaria in Europe. Quinine was isolated in 1820. Today the tonic in your gin and tonic still contains a small amount, far below medicinal levels. Penicillin: from a mould In 1928, Alexander Fleming noticed that a mould, Penicillium, had killed bacteria growing on a plate in his laboratory. It took more than a decade, and the work of Howard Florey, Ernst Chain and their team, to turn this into a usable medicine. Antibiotics transformed medicine and have saved many millions of lives. Metformin: from French lilac Goat’s rue, also called French lilac, was used in medieval Europe for symptoms we now associate with diabetes. Its active compound, galegine, inspired the development of metformin, today one of the most widely prescribed medicines in the world for type 2 diabetes. Artemisinin: from sweet wormwood Chinese scientist Tu Youyou searched ancient texts and found references to sweet wormwood for fevers. Her team isolated artemisinin in the 1970s, which became a key malaria treatment. She received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2015. Statins and fungi Statins, used to lower cholesterol, also trace back to fungi. The first statin was discovered by Japanese scientist Akira Endo in the 1970s from a Penicillium mould, and lovastatin was later isolated from Aspergillus terreus. Fungi also gave us ciclosporin, which helps prevent organ transplant rejection. Medicine Natural source Year isolated or developed Morphine Opium poppy 1804 Quinine Cinchona bark 1820 Aspirin Willow bark and meadowsweet 1897 Digoxin Foxglove 1930 (studied from 1785) Penicillin Penicillium mould 1928, mass-produced 1940s Metformin Goat’s rue (French lilac) 1950s (used clinically) Artemisinin Sweet wormwood 1972 How a medicine is developed today The path from a promising natural compound to a medicine on a pharmacy shelf is long. It usually takes more than a decade and passes through several stages: Only a small fraction of compounds that enter trials ever become approved medicines. That is why a single laboratory study on a plant extract, however exciting the headline, is a long way from proof that it works in people. Irish hedgerows: beautiful, but handle with care Ireland’s hedgerows hold several plants with a medical history, including meadowsweet, foxglove and willow. Many traditional Irish remedies used local plants. It is a rich heritage worth celebrating, but foraging for medicinal use is risky: plants can be misidentified, potency varies hugely, and some, like foxglove, are toxic in small amounts. Enjoy them on a walk, and leave the medicine-making to the professionals. What this does and does not mean These stories are remarkable, but they are often used online to suggest that “natural” remedies are better than medicines. That is the wrong lesson. In every case above: Chewing willow bark is not the same as taking a measured aspirin, and eating foxglove is dangerous. “Natural” and “safe” are not the same thing. Where does CBD fit? CBD is a compound from the hemp plant that is also the subject of active medical research. One purified CBD medicine is licensed in Europe as a prescription medicine for certain rare forms of childhood epilepsy, prescribed only by specialists. That is a very different product from the CBD food supplements sold in shops and online, which are not medicines, are not licensed to treat any condition, and should never be used in place of prescribed medication. At Dr. Hemp Me we sell CBD as a food supplement for people who want to include it in a general wellness routine, such as our CBD Oil 10% and CBD Gummies. We are fascinated by the science, but we are clear about the limits. Learn more about how CBD interacts with the body in the hidden system inside you, and about the research on functional mushrooms in our mushroom guide. The future of plant and fungal medicine Scientists continue to screen plants, fungi and marine organisms for new medicines, particularly as antibiotic resistance grows. Biodiversity matters here: every species lost may be a medicine never discovered. It is a good