title: Herbal medicine, Chaplin, and "The Kid".
abstract: At variance with other largely safe complementary alternative medicines like homeopathy and acupuncture, which only carry the risk of inducing patients to shun effective treatment, herbal remedies are real, albeit impure, drugs and therefore fully capable of producing undesirable consequences if misused. The advantages they offer are uncertain since genuine evidence of efficacy and effectiveness is present in only a few cases. A result of this imbalance is that studies in this field are considerably more meaningful when they deal with untoward effects than with therapeutic uses. This disproportion has suggested to us the curious similarity with the situation portrayed in the film "The Kid" where the essential task of the protagonist (Chaplin) is to repair the windows his stone-throwing child has just broken.
authors.affiliation: University of Lund, Sweden. mauri.pandolfi@gmail.com
authors.forename: Maurizio
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pandolfi
authors.forename: Lucilla
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zilletti
mesh_terms: D020900:Echinacea; D005197:Famous Persons; D029001:Herbal Medicine; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D008516:Medicine, Chinese Traditional; D009040:Motion Pictures / Q000266:history; D008517:Phytotherapy; D010946:Plants, Medicinal; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic; D016896:Treatment Outcome