Switzerland is the Herb Garden of Europe

1 May 2025

The medicinal, psychological, and sometimes miraculous (and poisonous!) effects of herbs and plants are as old as humankind on all continents. Native Americans in the Amazon, Indians in America, Chinese, Japanese, Aborigines, Persians, Greeks, Celts, or Romans, every community knew its herbalists and plant experts.
The monks on the European continent preserved this knowledge of their predecessors from the sixth century onwards, developed it further, and often recorded it in writing. Every monastery had its herb garden.

Dornach Monastery today

Le Jardin botanique de Genève

However, one of the most famous writers was not a monk, but a nun of the Benedictine order. Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) was not only a nun and later (1152) the abbess of the Rupertsberg monastery she founded near Bingen on the Rhine.

She became known above all as a theologian, author, composer, natural scientist, and ‘pharmacist’ avant la lettre, with her research into medicinal herbs, plants, and juices.

She was also an advisor to Emperor Frederick I, also known as Barbarossa (born around 1122-1190). She corresponded with popes, bishops, and other abbots and monks, such as Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153). In short, an extraordinary medieval personality.

Her biography is described in various (digital) publications and will not be discussed further here (see, among others: G. H. Heepen, Das Heilwissen der Hildegard von Bingen. Munich 2015; G. Muhr, Hildegard von Bingen. Man in harmony with nature, Daun, 2024).

The first printed book, “Physica” (1533). Picture: Wikipedia

In addition to various theological works, she also wrote two medical works between 1150 and 1158 that are still relevant today. The first work bears the full title “Liber simplicis medicinae” or “Physica”; the second is called “Liber compositae medicinae” or “Causae et Curae”.

L’Ermitage de Neuchâtel

Both books explore mental illnesses and the therapeutic effects of herbs, plants, and juices. She drew not only on the experience of the monastery (and classical antiquity), but also on the folk knowledge of local communities and their herbal and plant experts. She described hundreds of mental and physical ailments and set up a kind of pharmacy in her books and her herb garden.

Samedan

After her death, Hildegard and her pharmacy were forgotten for centuries. However, several personalities devoted themselves to the healing power of herbs, including the Swiss physician Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim, also known as Paracelsus (1493-1541), and the Bavarian Sebastian Anton Kneipp (1821-1897) centuries later.
Hildegard’s ‘herbal pharmacy’ only became accessible again in the twentieth century. The books mentioned above were translated (from Latin) into German at the beginning of the 20th century.

Johann Künzle, Das Grosse Kräuterbuch. Ratgeber für gesunde und kranke Tage

The Swiss Father Johann Künzle (1867-1945), Father Flurin Maissen (1906-1999), Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), and Ita Wegman (1876-1943) also recognised the beneficial effects of herbs and plants at the beginning of the 20th century.

Another Swiss, Alfred Vogel (1902-1996), went his own way and founded the company Bioforce AG (now A. Vogel AG) in 1963, after a half-century of practical experience, publications, and research (worldwide) in the field of the healing effects of herbs.

However, the Swiss chemist Kurt Altermatt and some pharmacists from Austria were the first producers of prescriptions based on Hildegard’s works.

After that, the dissemination increased rapidly, and it is no coincidence that the International Hildegard von Bingen Society was founded in Switzerland in 1980.

The worldwide centre of pharmacy, the care of nature, and the recognition of Hildegard’s merits also go hand in hand in Basel. It symbolises the city’s respect for this pioneer of modern medicine and pharmacy.

Switzerland is not only Europe’s moated castle, but also its herb garden. In every hamlet, village, town, and on numerous public and private properties, (centuries-old) herb plants often grow and bloom. Nature is literally and figuratively never far away in this country.