> There's nothing natural about extracting some chemical compounds from a plant on the other side of the world and using it to improve a medical problem you hav

> There's nothing natural about extracting some chemical compounds from a plant on the other side of the world and using it to improve a medical problem you have. Excepting "other side of the world", the rest is very natural. It is one of the methods of getting poisons for some organisms - eating plants that already contain them. For example, monarch caterpillars accumulate certain toxic glycosides acquired from plants, and use them to make themselves poisonous to predators. So do other insect species - feeding on plants toxic to their potential predators and then keeping the toxins is a common defense mechanism. One that humans borrowed too - e.g. poisonous dart frogs (people don't feed on them, usually, just take their poison, but the principle is similar). Animals also been observed consuming certain plants when sick, though I am not sure about the efficiency of those methods. Chimps certainly are known to use some plants as anti-parasitic, etc. agents, and other simians too. There's evidence of elephants doing the same. I'm not sure where would we make a boundary between purposeful behavior of "smart" animals like chimps and pretty much the same behavior of humans, only at larger scale, but if we declare chimps being "natural", using plant medicines, at least a primitive ones, should be included.