lest eating customs. Thus, we are what we eat,drink,breathe
or associate with. An understanding of herbs and herbal
products projects us into a dimension where knowledge is
inter-related, demonstrating the universality of creation
in Nature's alchemical laboratory and the operation of the
Universal Mind. The study of herbal wholistics and isolates
gives us a better appreciation of the ethnobotanical, socio-
economic and mystico-cultural influences in anthropology,
which have contributed considerably to the evolution of
folklore, traditional medicine, medical sciences and in part-
icular, organic chemistry. the philosopher, Hegel, stated:
" All knowledge is one. If we can know everything about
one thing, we will know all. "
Village Medicine
All these years of practice have taught me that med-
icine is holistic. Doctors do not cure patients; we merely
help them towards homeostatic equilibrium. Nature does
the rest. Treating the symptoms without rooting out the
cause is not holistic medicine. In fact, this is what we
have been doing all the time in orthodox medical practice.
In reality, no drug has ever healed a person. Hippocrates
stated :
" The body heals itself; the physician is only
Nature's assistant. "
The awakening to this time-honoured philosophy is
stimulated by my having to work in unfavourable conditions
in the outskirts of the Kahang rainforests, Johor, Southern Malaysia.
This town village is subjected to periodic floods,causing
overflowing from blocked drains and sewage, fouling the well-
water which is not chemically treated. The well water is
very acidic with a pH about 6 [ potable range is pH 6 - 10.5 ]
The low pH of the drinking water is sure to affect the blood pH.
How this biochemical aberration is going to affect the paediatric,
geriactric and the pregnant population in Kahang? How the low
blood pH is going to affect those with chronic medical problems
and its inter-