In the United States, the choice of an herb or phytomedicine for therapeutic or preventive purposes is usually carried out by the patient. To state it differently, the herb is self-selected because physicians here are not ordinarily educated in the use of such medicinals. However, in many other countries, herbs and phytomedicinals are prescribed by doctors with considerable frequency. It cannot be emphasized strongly enough that herbs in their medicinal sense are drugs. For reasons that will become apparent when the legal concerns regarding herbs are discussed in the Appendix, certain specialinterest groups continually emphasize their point of view that medicinal herbs are foods or dietary supplements.