Health: New EU legislation may cause a headache for herbalist

With the decades-old tapeworm being kept as a lucky mascot, the recipes were dusted off and refined so that the potions could be prescribed to the shop's many modern-day clients, rebuilding the popularity of the business to the level enjoyed when Duncan Napier set it up in 1870 and had customers queuing round the block at Bristo Place.

Probably the largest natural medicine practice in the UK, and Scotland's oldest and only remaining herbal house, Napiers is as busy as ever, with 22,000 patients visiting for consultations last year. However, what should be a celebration of 150 years of success is tempered by a threat from new legislation to be introduced next year. In 2005 a new EU law was passed called the Herbal Medicinal Products Directive. The UK agreed to comply, which means that after April 2011, no unlicensed herbal medicines can be sold over the counter. This means that the majority of herbal products will disappear from the market as it is too costly and complex for most companies to comply.

Since around 90 per cent of Napiers products are unlicenced, these will be taken off the shelves and will only be available to after consultation with a herbalist. "In future, mainly single-herb products will be sold over the counter and only 90 licences will be granted in 2011. This will be limiting as there are thousands of remedies, and most of ours contain about 15 herbs each," says Atkinson, now managing director of Napiers. "No new products will be allowed on the market without a licence, and since it costs about 70,000 to secure a licence, it will be prohibitively expensive for any but the very large businesses."

Fortunately for Napiers, of its 45 staff – spread across three shops, in Edinburgh and Glasgow – ten are qualified herbalists. So its 300 tinctures and 150 formulas, used to treat everything from catarrh to flatulence, will still be available. And one of the unique things about the Scottish herbalist, according to Atkinson, is that it has qualified practitioners on the shop floor, professionals who have degrees in herbal medicine and are members of the National Institute of Medical Herbalists.

The new legislation also involves tightening regulation and increasing safety of herbal medicines. Atkinson says, "We need this because at the moment anyone can set themselves up as a herbalist. We also want to be regulated and represented by the Health Professions Council, as it will give the public more access and allow doctors to refer people to us."

Welcome as some changes in legislation are, they do raise a question mark over Napiers' future, as the cost of the products will increase. "It is serious, but I'm absolutely determined Napiers will not close," says Atkinson. "It's my role to get it through the legislation, and there's no reason why it shouldn't go on for another 150 years. We want to see the public still having access to all of their favourite remedies."

Many of these favourite remedies are still made according to the original recipes, written down by Napier himself 150 years ago. "The blood-purifier, nerve and debility tonic and nasal catarrh mix are all made to Napier's original recipes, although the names have been changed. His lobelia cough syrup is still a very popular product and a bestseller," Atkinson says.

It was this lobelia concoction that breathed life into the whole enterprise, after the young baker's apprentice developed a chronic cough that he cured himself with a syrup he made using a book of herbal recipes found on a stall in Nicholson Street. His fame spread and he was invited by Edinburgh Botanical Society to open a clinic at Bristo Place.

Napier was regularly seen gathering herbs on Arthur's Seat or Blackford Hill in his kilt. While some of the same local ingredients are used today, many come from much further afield – such as Jamaican dog wood, a poison traditionally used to stun fish, but which is also useful in pain management.

Atkinson explains that Napiers prodcts are unique in that they are based on what is known as the tonic principle. "For instance, you would treat acne by also looking at any stomach or bowel problems that may be causing it," she says.

Napier's work was continued by his sons and grandsons, but by the business had come to a virtual standstill the 1970s. Until the alternative health expert Jan de Vries, who was running the premises, invited the newly qualified Atkinson to take over. "It was like a museum," she says, "with all of the equipment still there in wooden crates. I set about refining the recipes and choosing those that are most popular today.

"Herbal medicine is a viable profession and healthcare option, but we really had to get out there on the high street, take off the woolly socks and put on white coats."

Since then, alternative practitioners offering everything from Tibetan massage to lymphatic drainage have been added to the practice, but don't expect to be pelted with rose petals as whales sing along to nose-flute music. "We're not a health spa. We're a working clinic, dealing with medical problems," says Atkinsion. "I'll take Napiers through the next hurdle and I'm determined to make it work, because the herbs work."

Consultations last 45 minutes and cost 40 for the first and 30 for subsequent sessions; concessions are also available. See www.napiers.net

This article was first published in Scotland on Sunday, January 31, 2010