Hypericum is important for a different reason altogether. Many constitutionally unhappy people refuse to have anything to do with orthodox western medicine. They won't take "unnatural" pharmaceutical products at all.
In consequence, they spend much of their lives trapped in a squalid psychochemical ghetto of chronic low spirits. The only sort of remedy which they'll conceivably contemplate taking must carry a "natural" label and soothingly "herbal" description. Unfortunately, most folk remedies are only marginally effective. Plants tend to manufacture psychotropics because they poison or debilitate creatures tempted to eat them - not to heal our psychic woes. Thus the Wisdom Of Nature is a quaint piece of make-believe.
Hypericum, however, which is the active ingredient in St John's wort, appears to be an effective mood-brightener and anxiolytic - by today's standards at least. Its efficacy and side-effect profile compare favourably with its synthetic counterparts. Hypericum's blend of serotonin-reuptake inhibiting and (mild) MAO-inhibiting properties (not a combination otherwise to be explored with potent synthetics: the risk of the potentially fatal serotonin syndrome is too great) contributes to - without wholly explaining - its generally benign effects. Once again, much more research is needed.
