Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of plants used as medicine


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   '''Nom withdrew the AfD two days ago. Looks like a Keep regardless; renaming can be done WP:BOLDly or through talk-page discussion'''. The Bushranger One ping only 02:41, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

List of plants used as medicine

 * – ( View AfD View log )

Before coming here, several users have tried to create a sourced article, and an IP proposed it for deletion at Category:Proposed deletion. I removed the tag, because deletion is likely to be controversial and notified the user at the IP address. This list, which could be a good article, has been edited into an ugly, messy mush of POV-pushing and spam. It includes unverifiable facts and there are few reliable citations. It's an extreme example of a bad list. It could potentially be decent, but this needs to be blown up and started again from scratch. Bearian (talk) 20:27, 27 September 2011 (UTC) Nomination withdrawn. Bearian (talk) 01:53, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

I strongly disagree that the list should be deleted, while strongly agreeing that it's badly in need of reworking. I'd be willing to work on it, but I'm hesitant to do so if anything I do is going to disappear out from under me in a few days. As for the "Let's start from scratch" argument: The article as is has a decent set of references, which would be a good point of departure for a drastic rewrite. The problem with deleting an article is that nothing from the article is visible again. Further, it makes it tricky to rewrite it, because you have to reinstate the article to do so. May I suggest that the article be kept, but with a (very) strong suggestion that it be rewritten? Waitak (talk) 20:59, 27 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Most of the herbs don't have a single study at all; hell, the vast majority don't even have any indication they're actually medicinal plants, they're just on the list, with nary a condition given that they treat. Others have claims about human health based on in vitro or mouse studies. There's maybe... a half dozen herbs with decent sourcing - willow, opium poppy, foxglove, that sort of thing.
 * That said, if the article IS completely rewritten, it should not under any circumstances be deleted based on arguments before that. But as it stands, is there really anything worth saving here? I think not; List articles are a special case, since they can't simply be trimmed down to stubs.
 * Suppose you could try making it a very short list to start, if you're really desperate to save it. Maybe it'll seem less hopeless after. 86.182.20.197 (talk) 21:20, 27 September 2011 (UTC) — 86.182.20.197 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.


 * All right, I've made a start on a rewrite. I'd be more than happy to keep going if the article is removed from consideration for deletion. Obviously, I don't want to waste more time than I've already spent if the article is going away. I think that there's a value in this article, beyond that of the other tradition-specific lists of plants, in that this article explicitly lists (1) which medical traditions the plants are used in and (2) what they're used for. That's worth having in one place. It's also useful to have entries on which to hang references regarding claims and counterclaims, while not engaging in the discussion about these claims.
 * Once we've got a more respectable number of well-cited entries, I'd like to reorganize them in whatever way seems suitable.
 * So should I keep going?
 * Waitak (talk) 19:00, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

OI've taken the liberty of trimming everything uncited, or for which no medical claim was made. Not sure about a lot of what remains (single studies used to say a herb CAN treat a disease, really honest?), but at least we now know what's there and potentially usable. 86.182.20.197 (talk) 22:12, 27 September 2011 (UTC) — 86.182.20.197 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.  —Tom Morris (talk) 22:48, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions.  —Tom Morris (talk) 22:48, 27 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete I think what happened here is that this article was created when other lists did not exist at the time.  We now have lists detailing the herbs that different folk medicines use.  This article is a unguided amalgamation of herbs detailing only a cursory number of health claims.  Our existing themed lists are notable, but such a list is multivarious.Curb Chain (talk) 15:19, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment - I see that it's under (re-)construction. Bearian (talk) 19:34, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Hmm, I see it has been rewritten, but it still has the problems the previous version had: It seems to be including drugs from many different medical systems, and I think it would be extremely long & excessive to create an article such as this. It would not be close to being complete.  I see no advantage of this article.Curb Chain (talk) 05:52, 29 September 2011 (UTC)


 *  Comment Keep - This should properly serve as the article for Category:Medicinal plants. I see that category has few subs so it doesn't seem unreasonable that it should have a list. For sure, the list would be huge but if ordered alphabetically by common name, cited and with internal links to the applicable branch(es) of medicine then it could be a great reference point. ŞůṜīΣĻ ¹98¹ Speak 12:48, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't a disambiguation page be better?Curb Chain (talk) 16:11, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
 * After reflection, I think not. There aren't enough lists of plants by medicine system and some plants will be cross-category. ŞůṜīΣĻ ¹98¹ Speak 15:43, 30 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep per WP:HEY. I am surprised pleasantly that it has been improved vastly. Bearian (talk) 17:51, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep AFD is not cleanup and deletion is neither necessary nor helpful when rewriting. And it hardly needs to said that the topic is notable: Google Books lists 69,000 books about medicinal plants. Warden (talk) 22:30, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep There are plenty of reliable sources for the items listed there, with links to Wikipedia articles about these plants also, and hordes of book coverage obviously, plus some plants also make it into the news. The nominator's claim that we should destroy everything, in the hopes something better will be made, is absolutely ridiculous.   D r e a m Focus  09:31, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
 * delete It seems to be impossible to write an article on the topic that does not make unsubstantiated claims that herbs can be successfully used to treat things. It improved briefly, now it's right back to claiming herbs can treat named medical diseases because someone says they can somewhere, often ignoring parts of the source which say "do not work", or "evidence is weak". Quite simply, we just don't seem able to make an article on the subject that fulfils minimal standards. 86.176.218.96 (talk) 11:54, 30 September 2011 (UTC) — 86.176.218.96 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * We are not in the business of making medical claims that particular treatments will work. Please see our disclaimer which explains that we are an unreliable amateur encyclopedia, not a doctor.  And even real doctors don't tend to give guarantees - they give estimates or probabilities.  We should not therefore strive for some impossible level of perfection because perfect is the enemy of good. Warden (talk) 15:32, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I'd also add that the article doesn't make unsubstantiated claims that herbs can be used to treat things. Neither does it make unsubtantiated claims that herbs cannot be used to treat things. Personal opinions as to the effectiveness of plants as medicine have no place in the article or its AFD discussion. ŞůṜīΣĻ ¹98¹ Speak 15:43, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Evidence matters Herbs that haver been shown to work can be said to work. Herbs that have NOT been shown to work, or which have been shown to NOT work should not be put in an article with implied claims they can treat a disease. This is not about personal opinion, this is about an article that I've caught out making claims that it's used to treat, by linking to pages saying that there's no evidence for it treating that condition. The article abuses sources, makes unsubstantiated claims, and that's nothing to do with my personal opinions on whether herbs can treat things (I think they probably can in a lot of cases, but we can't just act as if they can in every case.) Here's me correcting one such case - what I corrected to is what the site said; what existed before is pretty much a lie. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_plants_used_as_medicine&action=historysubmit&diff=453200128&oldid=453170095

86.177.230.221 (talk) 16:41, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
 * "Caught", huh? Direct quote from the article I cited. "Alfalfa is used for kidney conditions, bladder and prostate conditions, and to increase urine flow." The article also states that it is unable to rate the effectiveness of alfalfa because it doesn't have evidence either way. I resent the implication that I'm trying to pull one over on someone. I highly value and embrace the values that WP embodies for verified information. What we're trying to verify in this instance is that somebody, somewhere used this plant for this purpose. I more than welcome corrections if I've misread any of the articles, if they don't back up that claim. Waitak (talk) 18:16, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Or take the claims for arnica. One study used isn't about arnica, another found it was no better than the control. These do not indicate it makes a good treeatment, nor do they even induicate any sort of traditional use worth discussing. 86.177.230.221 (talk) 16:51, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
 * If you read the article with anything other than self-righteous indignation then you'll observe that THE ARTICLE EXISTS TO LIST WHICH PLANTS ARE USED AS MEDICINE. It does NOT exist to say whether those medicines are effective or not. You've also been told this already by Warden but have chosen to ignore that and insert claims as to individual medicine's effectiveness into the article. Kindly do not continue in this vein. ŞůṜīΣĻ ¹98¹ Speak 16:52, 30 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep and rename to List of plants used in traditional medicine: less than a handful of these plants are used to prepare modern medical compounds. The article needs to avoid the appearance of endorsing use of these plants when medically reputable sources in general make no such endorsement. Mangoe (talk) 17:10, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
 * But there is no appearance of endorsing the use of the plants in medicine, except in the mind of a single anonymous crusader. ŞůṜīΣĻ ¹98¹ Speak 17:30, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Suriel, I disagree. The very first entry, on alfalfa, makes claims that the source, MedlinePlus, says aren't true, at least not as far as modern medicine is concerned. Until I just added it, there was no indication that only a very few of these plants produce drugs used in modern medicine at all. In reality, this is a list of traditional herbal medicines, which is perfectly OK; but the article should reflect that. Mangoe (talk) 17:44, 30 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Actually... no. As I've been going over each of these entries, I've been surprised at the fact that most of them are being evaluated in the context of modern medicine, in one way or another. That's what pharmocology and ethnobotany are all about, after all, and both are very active fields of research. This article doesn't focus on modern applications as much, so that fact isn't prominent in the entries, but it's not the case that these plants are only of interest in traditional medicine. Waitak (talk) 18:35, 30 September 2011 (UTC)


 * ...which doesn't address what I said. It is hardly surprising that traditional herbals would be investigated, as that after all is how we have Digoxin. The problematic claim here is use in medicine. In general, they aren't used in modern medicine, by which I would understand "use" to mean that one's doctor could prescribe a remedy containing an extract from the plant in question (or a synthetic analogue thereof). Mangoe (talk) 20:07, 30 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Fair enough. That's a different point from what I'd understood, and one that I don't have sufficient knowledge to address with any degree of certainty. If I could address your comment on alfalfa, I'd be interested in knowing what claims you believe the entry makes that MedlinePlus says aren't true. The entry asserts only that alfalfa is used for certain things. The MedlinePlus article says that nearly verbatim, and is cited for that reason. Waitak (talk) 20:18, 30 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep. List is now well sourced and the solution to the (frequent) problems with poor writing on this topic is not to delete everything related to medicinal plants, but instead to encourage and recognize good work. Kingdon (talk) 22:51, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Rename to List of plants used in herbal medicine. Just using the term medicine seems to be cause of many problems. Medicine is equated with modern western chemical based system for which few plants are used pure, where as herbal medicine implies a different system. There is really space for two articles, one listing plants used in herbal medicine and another examining the scientific evidence for properties of different plants; try to mix the two doesn't really do either well. There is also scope of other lists by tradition, TCM etc. The topic it too broad, some sources have 5000+ plants used medicinally, for it all to fit in one list.--Salix (talk): 07:13, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
 * That's why I say it would be excessively large, and not useful. Note that the modern medicine is evidence based medicine.Curb Chain (talk) 11:29, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Size is not a problem as it is our policy that there is no practical limit to the volume of our content. We have lists with hundreds of thousands of entries such as List of minor planets (which has about quarter of a million entries in total).  All that we need do in such cases is subdivide the list per WP:SPLIT. Warden (talk) 16:57, 1 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete: This should be a category, not a list. As it is now, it is merely a content and POV fork of the individual articles in the list. Material about medical uses is best left to the articles on the individual plants themselves. There are also major problems with what sort of medicine is intended: modern results-based medicine, or traditional and alternative "medicine". This includes what sourcing criteria are to be used: WP:MEDRS or just any old self-published promotional websites. The list as it stands is a massive spam and POV magnet, and will quickly be HAS ALREADY BEEN loaded with all sorts of spurious "medical" claims. Rewriting hasn't helped address these problems, and I doubt that renaming will, either. I propose converting the list into a category that just lists the plants without presenting any health, nutritional or medical claims. Interested readers can visit the pages listed for details. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 11:40, 1 October 2011 (UTC)


 * If the fear of attracting spam or POV is enough to delete an article, then a good fraction of Wikipedia would be gone. The article itself (post-rewrite) assiduously avoids questions of medical efficacy. I'm sure that you're right, that people will try to add some over time, probably even in good faith. Those contributions will inevitably be culled, just like what happens in any other article. That's what Wikipedia is good at. All of the problems you're raising are problems with what you fear the article might become, not with what the article is, and that has to be the basis of any decision regarding it. Waitak (talk) 12:58, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I personally removed material supported by a blatant spm-link and a pseudoscientific journal, which you reverted claiming that the sources met the requirements of WP:MEDRS. I'm sorry, but unreliable sourcing is a problem with the article NOW. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 13:38, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
 * And I see that I'm not the only editor that thinks the article is being misused to spread "alternative medicine" tripe. [] Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 13:50, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The IP spa is clearly canvassing there by soliciting hostile opinion with comments such as "This article is just getting worse and worse ... Pretty much been taken over by Alt med trolls.". Such activity taints this discussion. Warden (talk) 16:51, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
 * @Dominus Vobisdu: I have to agree with you here, but I don't think categories should be applied either. The problem is that with medicine, we use sources to back up our information.  What happens when there is no evidence to back up these claims?  Are we supposed to use any source that claims that a specific plant will give us these effects when they are not evidence based?  Are we supposed to list Oregano when Ellen DeGeneres states that it is useful for hemorrhoids, because evidence based medicine follows evidence, but since this article doesn't?Curb Chain (talk) 12:35, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The Oregano article has a section on its medical uses, as will many such articles about plants. Are you advocating the deletion of any article which mentions medical matters?  If not, what's special about this one, that we have to delete it rather than all those other articles too?  Warden (talk) 16:42, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
 * This article is patently misguided. Traditional Chinese medicine and to a lesser extent Ayurvedic medicine are examples that use plants systemicaticly as a medical system.  This article is aiming to conflate evidence based medicine and the use of plants which is contradicting other articles on wikipedia.  How is this a reason to keep this article.Curb Chain (talk) 22:52, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, I see that converting to a category would be a problem, too, in that the list of plants would be endless and selecting them would be difficult to justify. I agree with you that any article, list or category on which health claims are made has to be sourced excusively with sources that meet the requirements of WP:MEDRS. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 13:38, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
 * WP:CLS explains that it is not our policy to delete lists in favour of categories. One of the advantages of lists, as compared with categories, is that they enable citations to be provided.  This list is the best way of verifying the medical use of plants and there is no difficulty in finding sources which would satisfy WP:MEDRS.  The article already cites such sources, for example, MEDLINE, and there are thousands more out there such as Medicinal plants in tropical West Africa &mdash; a respectable work published by the Cambridge University Press.  Warden (talk) 16:42, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Obviously a small number (two or three?) of the participants in this discussion are unhappy with the article. The goal here is this: make a relatively comprehensive list of plants that have been used medicinally, noting what those usages have been, without making any claim that doing so is good, bad, effective or ineffective. Those questions are not within the scope of this article. If an entry here addresses these questions, then the text doing so should be removed (and that's exactly why an earlier edit was reverted). It's a list of plants USED as medicine, not a list of plants that are USEFUL as medicine. I wouldn't have any idea how to write the latter. The editors who'd like to delete the article seems to feel that merely noting use, in some medical tradition or another, is necessarily the same thing as claiming a medical endorsement, even in the face of repeatedly disclaiming any such endorsement. So let me ask: how would those of you who feel so negatively about what the article currently is like to see? How would you deal with making a list of plants used as medicine? We're trying really hard here not to make any claims at all, beyond noting the well-attested historical fact of usage. Apparently that's not (all of) what you're looking for, though. What, in your view, does a good article on this topic look like? Waitak (talk) 22:11, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I know of only nonevidence based medicine that uses plants with unproven efficacy. This is adequately covered in their respective articles and apropos lists.Curb Chain (talk) 05:57, 2 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep. The article has been improved since it was originally nominated. It does appear to be a topic that is relevant and notable enough for encyclopedic coverage. More work needs doing to improve the article and I see requests for help from Wiki Pharm and WikiMed projects to help with that. The article has problems but lets not throw the baby out with the bath water by deleting the whole article. :-)-- Literature geek |  T@1k?  20:49, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment - A potential article rename is: List of plants used in naturopathy. Northamerica1000 (talk) 07:11, 2 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep - The topic passes WP:LISTN, notability guidelines for stand-alone lists. This topic has been covered as a group by independent, reliable sources. Here are some sources I have added to a new "Further reading" section of the article.
 * "Plant medicine in practice: using the teachings of John Bastyr."
 * "Sacred plant medicine: explorations in the practice of indigenous herbalism."
 * "Making Plant Medicine."
 * "Medical herbalism: the science and practice of herbal medicine (Google eBook)."
 * "The Cherokee herbal: native plant medicine from the four directions."
 * "Plant Spirit Medicine: The Healing Power of Plants."

Northamerica1000 (talk) 14:26, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment - Added to article: Bown, Deni (1995.) "Encyclopedia of herbs and their uses." Dorling Kindersley. ISBN 0789401843
 * Northamerica1000 (talk) 14:38, 3 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Weak keep. Needs a lot of cleaning up. One possibility is to aim for more systematic coverage of the various herbs where activity can be established. Among the antiscorbutics, why lemon and not lime given its history in the British Navy, why not blackcurrant, chilli or potato which also contain Vitamin C. Then the febrifuges are reasonably well known, feverfew for example. Many plants contain phenols, no big deal, but no problem noting it if there is a source. Claims to areas that are much less well established shouldn't be made unless either there is a MEDRS source or there is evidence that it has been used to treat the condition. Claims of efficacity in cancer or diabetes should raise great big red flags. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:09, 3 October 2011 (UTC)


 * The answer to "why not" is pretty simple: (1) the article in its current form is about a week old after being scrapped and completely rewritten (2) at least thus far, I'm the only editor who's contributed entries and (3) this is as far as I've gotten. Please feel free to help. Regarding efficacy, please see the abundant comments in this discussion and the article itself. The article makes no claims that any plant is an appropriate treatment for anything. The article is for noting which plants have been applied to which conditions, within a variety of current and historical medical traditions, as a matter of (attested) historical fact, not for evaluating the efficacy of plants used medicinally. Waitak (talk) 22:52, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.