Plants are our Friends, Doctors may Not Be

OK, I'm not talking about poison ivy, hemlock a la Socrates, and the other nasty-to-humans ones. But you see, if you have some knowledge, you aren't going to go out and consume or even touch the ones you know will harm you. I'm talking about things like forests to calm the mind, pomegranates and olive leaf to cure what ails you, garlic and onions for incredible taste and health, you know what I mean. Good stuff, humans evolved on a planet covered in plants and you bet they figured out pretty early on which ones were beneficial and which ones to avoid. Now, to my great amusement, there are "new" scientific discoveries almost every day about the health benefits of plants. New? I don't think so, science is so darned silly, and this is coming from a science major. Maybe it is the techno-science-greed morph of science that I find so annoying. Which brings us right to doctors. Modern medicine is so barbaric, so in its infancy. What choices do we have when we consult with a doctor? Chop you up or poison you. Really, when you get right down to the basics, it's surgery or medicine. And even some doctors will admit that all medicine is poison. Yes, I do know that many medicines were originally plant derived but molecules have been isolated and synthesized, vastly increasing potency, allowing for patents and resulting greed. Isolating single compounds may in fact decrease the effectiveness of the plant as a whole. Do you know of any medicines that have zero side effects? Do you know of anyone on this entire planet who has a medicine deficiency? I think not. And yes, that is a strange bark-heart, I found it while hiking in the woods, guess that plant wanted to be my friend.