Nature Is the Best Chemist

2 Chronicles 16:12
“And Asa in the thirty and ninth year of his reign was diseased in his feet, until his disease was exceeding great; yet in his disease he sought not to the Lord, but to the physicians.”

Aristotle is quoted as saying that the main job of the physician is to amuse the patient while nature heals him. Well, medicine has come a long way since Aristotle, but modern physicians can learn from the medicine man.

A few years ago, an American chemist was visiting villages in the East African Bush. There he witnessed entire tribes drinking a tea made by the medicine man from the berries of a local wild bush. It was said that the tea would ward off cholera. A little local study revealed that the tea did indeed seem to prevent cholera. So the chemist collected a quantity of the berries and took them back to his lab for study. He found that the active ingredient in the berry, maesanin, does act as a powerful antibiotic. Yet, it doesn’t cause the body to produce antibodies as does other antibiotics, nor does it fight bacteria in the same way as other antibiotics. This means that maesanin may be effective for people who are sensitive to other antibiotics. The chemist concluded, “Nature is still the best chemist.”

Well, it was the God Who created the bush and the berries that offer what appears to be an antibiotic that may well be superior to any before discovered. And He freely gave it to us just as He freely gave us His Son.

Prayer:
Dear Lord Jesus Christ, You are the great physician of both body and soul. Help me always to remember to look to You first when I am in need – and to thank and praise You when I am not in need. Amen.

Notes:
“Nature’s Remedies.” Science 83, June, p. 6. Photo: Vibrio cholerae, the bacterium that causes cholera.