Botanical medicine, also known as herbal medicine, involves using the healing powers of plants to treat various conditions. It’s a common misconception that herbs aren’t dangerous but they can have adverse effects, they can interact with pharmaceuticals and they can be harmful if used incorrectly. Naturopathic doctors are the only health professionals besides herbalists that receive thorough training to use herbs safely. Typically botanical medicine takes longer to have an effect than pharmaceuticals but it also features less side-effects, especially if the whole plant is used rather than isolated constituents. Botanical medicine can be used to strengthen specific organ systems, calm the nervous system, eradicate pathogens and modulate physiological processes. There are different ways to extract the herbal constituents and different methods offer different potencies.