"Hundreds of medicinal plants are at risk of extinction, threatening the discovery of future cures for disease, according to experts ."
BBC NEWS: Medicinal plants 'facing threat'
The art of healing was gradually created over the millennia. For thousands of years, experiential discoveries were orally transmitted among women, elderly, wise individuals, midwives, and healers. At some point in time, practitioners in several populations recorded the results of their own experience. This written record preserves a wealth of painstakingly acquired knowledge, transmitted from generation to generation without interruption. Although many such documents have been destroyed over time, thousands have survived. Most of these unique, fragile, and irreplaceable remains of human medical experience are now kept in the rare book collections across the world. However carefully preserved they might be, they are exposed to the unavoidable damage resulting from time and are not easily accessible even to scholars. Their handwriting is difficult to decipher, and their information needs to be properly understood and interpreted.
The Institute for the Preservation of Medical Traditions Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization for innovative research with principal interest in the recovery, preservation, and study of ancient medical traditions, especially therapeutics. It fosters and performs in-house and extramural scientific research; provides training for students and support for scientists; and shares knowledge by means of scientific publications, expertise for the scientific community, and information for nonspecialist audiences.
