Use in Western Culture
At the turn of the century, folk medicine was viewed as a practice used by poverty stricken communities and quacks. However the rejection of synthetic or biomedical products has become a growing trend in Western society and allowed for a rise in the demand for natural medicines. When less developed countries are taken into account it is estimated that over 50% of the world’s population relies on folk medicine practices. The prevalence of folk medicine in certain areas of the world will vary based on cultural norms. Chinese herbology, for instance, has very much taken traction in the NY area. Much of today's modern medicine though is previously based on plants that had been long used in folk medicine. Some researchers point out a significant factor, however, that many of the alternative treatments that they test are "statistically indistinguishable from placebo treatments".
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