Biotherapy – An Introduction

Abstract

‘Biotherapy’ is as old as the hills, in that man has learnt, over the millennia, mostly by trial and error, what the natural world around him has to offer, to alleviate or enhance his condition. By interacting with things, working with them, eating them, or rubbing them on, certain effects will follow, sometimes with dramatic results, including of course, death. As scientists, we divide the natural living world, somewhat arbitrarily, into the plant and animal kingdoms, but these have a massively ‘fuzzy’ interface. The biological world is diverse, complex, sophisticated and mysterious, changing inexorably over time, so that, whatever we might study or utilise, it is the end result of literally millions, even billions, of years of natural ‘research and development’. The ‘Bio’- epithet thus is open to a wide range of connotations. A glance at the World Wide Web confirms this diversity of use.