: The article, as it stands, documents ethnobotanical medicinal uses of plants. I certainly agree that "tonic" isn't a useful word in modern medicine, but there's a wealth of documentary evidence that the concept exists and is ascribed to particular plants in a number of medical traditions, both historically and currently, in various parts of the world. I think that the controversy over this article boils down to this: 

 :* One set of editors (including myself) is trying to document what properties traditional medicine practitioners have ascribed to plants that they particularly value. Speaking only for myself, the motivation for doing so is that - who knows? - maybe some of them actually do have these properties, and it's probably worth paying attention. Some plants clearly do have medicinal properties. Garlic, for example, became the principal antibiotic during World War I, when supplies of more powerful, modern drugs dried up. There's a huge body of knowledge that I think is important to record. In cases where these plants have been shown not to have these properties, this ought to be noted in the article. 

 :* Another set of editors strongly believes that no mention of medicinal properties should be made without peer-reviewed scientific papers that categorically demonstrate these properties. In my opinion,this leaves no room for any treatment of traditional medicine, from any POV other than rejecting it out of hand. That's clearly not in the spirit of Wikipedia. There's no POV involved in saying, "These four books say that this plant was used by these people for these purposes." 

 : I should add that summarily deleting all references, particularly when the person who did so is the very same person who demanded them in the first place, comes perilously close to - sorry - vandalism. Even with the best of interpretations, it's hard to see evidence of good faith in some of the recent edits.