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I acquired this book mostly to find out more about herbal vs. regular medicine in the late nineteenth century, and while there is some valuable information, Griggs does what most history writers do--concentrates on the early and mid-19th century and skips over the late period quite quickly.

Still, the book as a whole was fascinating. It's a survey of how natural remedies have been used over the millennia, starting with the Neanderthals, and how practitioners of what we now see as "alternative" medicines have been repeatedly sidelined, attacked, suppressed, jeered at and ignored by the regular medical establishment. And yet they have survived, and even thrived. Griggs covers mostly the UK, USA, and continental Europe (France and Germany in particular) but there are sideshoots discussing the picture in other countries, so it is a pretty comprehensive history.

The most detailed chapters are the last few, covering developments from around the 1970s to 1997, the date of the book's last edition. This book absolutely cries out to be updated to cover the last 25 years, and could almost be split into two books--one on the more distant history, and one on the more recent developments with an expanded discussion of the ecological, political, and commercial problems.

The writing is lively and the whole book is very readable, especially the history chapters. I felt that I learned a lot overall and would recommend this book to anyone trying to reach a better understanding of why today's medical landscape is the way it is.