During her menopause my mother took to reading more about vitamins and how the body works than she had done for many years, finding out that some of her symptoms were not just because of her condition but the increased sensitivity it gave her to food additives. It was a very instructive time and one that has led me to hold modern medicine with all its pills at a distance, though I see their brilliance.
Her new illness is a case in point with her doctors telling the shortcomings of the medication and why they give it anyway, and my reading up on all the contra-indications of every pill produced. Learning that despite the brilliance of research there are still quite a few things in the human body that we indistinctly understand.
So I am not dismissive at all of folk medicine based on plants as modern medicine is largely based on plants and where it is not the exotic alkaloids used in the pills are mirrored in some plants. I am not dismissive of herbs not of the efficacy of their use which was after all, all of medicine for centuries. I am however pretty sure that every person on the planet when taking any pill, herb or potion is an experiment, and we should all treat ourselves as such and watch closely and take nothing for granted.