In both India and Thailand, accession to the World Trade Organization may spell disaster for local herbalists.
Indian herbalists too are hampered by their country's slow and primitive patents system.
By midnight, some of the stalls have gone and many of the performers, the henna tattooists, the diviners and herbalists have packed up.
Asian herbalists could then find themselves in the ironic position of being sued for patent infringement or barred from developing commercial applications for their wares.
Traditional healers and herbalists are also benefiting from the regionwide recession.
Totnes boasts 41 independent coffee outlets and is well-known in the South West for its "alternative" image, with a resident community of artists, writers, therapists, musicians, and herbalists.
The wormwood plant had long been used by Chinese herbalists to treat fever, and researchers in China determined in the early 1970s that artemisinin worked to combat malaria.
The secretary general of the national council for traditional healers and herbalists association (Nacotha), Karim Msasizi, told BBC News Online they had already sent their proposal to the government.
They claim Britain is unusual in using GPs to manage allergic disorders and that a lack of specialised care may be sending many sufferers outside the NHS to herbalists and homeopathic practitioners.
The treatments depended largely on the belief that we are all compounds of hot, cold, wet and dry bodily humours: this was the basis of medicine from classical times, still used by herbalists and homeopaths.
There are old-fashioned Chinese medicine herbalists, traditional foodstuff vendors selling seaweed and glazed crickets by the handful, and more than a few shops hawking aka-pantsu -- bright red, high-waisted underwear believed to ward off evil and bring the wearer strength and vitality.
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