It is through experience that the many beneficial properties of plants are known, but it is of equal importance that a thorough knowledge of toxins and properties that may have an adverse effect are also considered. Increasingly, in a commercially concerned society, marketers are obviously aware of, and concerned with, the toxicity aspects of the products they offer and thus for the materials used in their constitution.

In the past, serious toxological studies have been performed using animal tests but these, of course, are now completely unacceptable. Thus toxicity data must be taken from available literature until alternative tests have been acceptably verified.