Empirics, physicians, and wonder drugs in early modern Germany: the case of the Panacea Amwaldina

This essay examines the conflicting approaches towards marvelous cures in sixteenth-century Germany As pharmaceutical substances flooded in from both east and west, they brought with them a market for "wonder drugs" that would cure any ailment. In this climate, university-trained physicians felt threatened by the rising popularity of cures hawked by empirical practitioners, while at the same time endorsing certain wonder drugs. Using the example of one particularly controversial empiric, Georg am Wald, and his wonder drug, the Panacea Amwaldina, this article parses the various factors that made the medical elite embrace certain cures while deriding others.

The virtues of balm in late medieval literature

This article argues that balm, or balsam, was, by the late medieval period, believed to be a panacea, capable of healing wounds and illnesses, and also preventing putrefaction. Natural history and pharmacological texts on balm from the ancient and late antique periods emphasized specific qualities of balm, especially its heat; these were condensed and repeated in medieval encyclopedias. The rarity and cost of balsam, from antiquity through the medieval period, and the high rate of counterfeiting also demonstrate its high demand and significance in medicine and religious ritual. Travel writing and itineraria from the early and central medieval periods added a new layer to ideas about the capabilities of balsam: that it originated from a Christian miracle and was a particularly Christian plant.

[The evolution of principal drugs in prescription compatibility]

The principal drugs of principal, adjuvant, auxiliary and conductant compatiblity in prescriptions recorded in the ancient literatures had different meaning and quantities. According to the current literatures, Zhuangzi Xu Wugui took the one can cure diseases as the principal drug; The principal, adjuvant, auxiliary and conductant drugs in Shennong Bencao Jing (Shennong's Classic of Materia Medica) can be used to differentiate the good and bad of drugs; Yaoxing Lun (Treatise on medicinal property) of Zheng quan (Tang dynasty) stipulated some drugs as principal drugs; Zazhu Bencao of Jiang Xiaowan (Tang dynasty) took the one can cure yin diseases as the principal drugs; Yixue Qiyuan (the origination of medicine) of Zhang Yuansu (Jin dynasty) took the one of maximum dosage as principal drugs; Piwei Lun (Treatise on Spleen and Stomach) of LI gao (Jin dynasty) took the powerful one as the principal drug; The principal drugs in Yi Lun (medicine treatise) of Wang Kentang (Ming dynasty) changed according to different ages. The quantities of principal drugs can had two and three ingredients even took one prescription as principal drug instead of one ingredient.

"Fossils" of practical medical knowledge from medieval Cairo

AIM OF THE STUDY

To asses the scientific value of the practical medical fragments found in the Cairo Genizah (10th century), as a useful source for ethnopharmacological purposes (in exposing rare and usually inaccessible original medieval practical knowledge of medicinal substances to present-day researchers), and to reconstruct the practical drugs and their uses.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A methodology distinguishing between theoretical (about 1500 fragments) and practical medical knowledge (about 230 fragments) was created and used. The information regarding the practical medicinal substances was extracted from prescriptions (140), lists of drugs (70) and few letters of physicians.

RESULTS

The reconstructed lists of practical (278) and theoretical (414) drugs allow us to recognize and quantify the gap between them in medieval times (136).

CONCLUSIONS

We propose that the data obtained from ancient prescriptions is comparable to ethnopharmacological surveys. The finding of plants such as myrobalan, saffron, licorice, spikenard and lentisk, all of which have scientifically proven anti-microbial/bacterial and anti-fungal activity, sheds a helpful light on the medical decision-making of the medieval practitioners in respect of the plants they applied as drugs. With the wealth of information meticulously assembled from these time capsules we expect to make a significant contribution to contemporary efforts at locating modern drugs in ancient roots and gauging their feasibility.

[Medicinal preparations in Mattioli's herbarium of 1596]

Herbaria in the 16th century very often included also the information concerning the use of medicinal plants in practice. The second Czech edition of Mattioli's Herbarium presented about 4000 pieces of therapeutic advice and instructions, including nearly 200 complete prescriptions for medicinal preparations. Preparations for internal use were mainly potions and concoctions. In preparations for external administration, the dosage was not of great importance and therefore less attention was paid to their precise composition. At that period, distillation was still widely used to prepare medicaments.

[Changes of powder prescriptions in Qian jin yao fang (Essential Prescriptions Worth A Thousand Gold) made by Song people]

As the contents in the two circulated versions of Qian jin yao fang (Essential Prescriptions Worth A Thousand Gold) ,i. e Bei ji qian jin yao fang (Essential Prescriptions Worth a Thousand Gold for Emergencies) and Xin diao sun zhen ren qian jin fang (Newly Printed Sun's Prescriptions Worth A Thousand Gold) are different greatly, especially on the literature of prescriptions. Song people made a lot of changes on the contents of powder prescriptions, including the related chapters and its contents, computation unit of materia medica, weights, and processing methods etc. without any remarks, nor notes in its preface. The contents in the Song version were more enriched than the newly carved version with the reasonable arrangement of its texts. As a clinical encyclopedia of traditional Chinese medicine, the Song version is more convenient for reading and using. However, it is a great taboo for the scholars to tamper an ancient work at will from bibliographic viewpoints.

Historical review of Svarna Măksika

The old age Ayurvedic claim about the therapeutic importance of metals and mineral bhasmas are time tasted. To make available the evidence for use of metals and minerals in therapeutics and to provide the knowledge of processing techniques in ancient India it is very much necessary to look over the history. Rasa săstra is the branch of Ayurvedic science which deals with the pharmaceutical processings of the metals and minerals. Svarna Măksika is one of the most important materials described in various Rasa literatures as well as in Sarmhităs and in other Ayurvedic texts. Going through the different literatures its different features, geological distributions and various processing techniques like sŏdhana, mărana are found. In Samhită period only the features were described but during 7th Cen. AD & onwards its processings were found. Now a day Svarrna Măksika is correlated with chalcopyrite by modern metallurgists. The features of chalcopyrite are also given to assist the more study in this regard. In the current paper it is tried to collect and compile all the related area about Svarna Măksika from all possible ancient literary resources as well as from possible modern texts, to facilitate further research.

Drugs held and sold by pharmacists of the Jewish community of medieval (11-14th centuries) Cairo according to lists of materia medica found at the Taylor-Schechter Genizah collection, Cambridge

The importance of the Genizah for the research of the medieval Mediterranean communities, supplying information on almost every aspect of life, is well known among historian. Less known is that pharmacy was the most popular of all branches of the healing art in the medieval Jewish community of Cairo, according to the Genizah manuscripts. Sources for study of medieval practical drugs are extremely rare since most records naturally vanish over the years, and only some medical books, which contained theoretical pharmacology, have survived to the present day. Drugs lists enable us to understand medieval practical pharmacy and to reconstruct their inventories. This study reports on 71 original drugs lists that were found in the Genizah; they are different from merchants' letters dealing with commerce in drugs and give no instructions for the use or preparation of formulas as usually found in prescriptions. Twenty-six lists are written in Judeo-Arabic and 45 in Arabic, none of the lists is written in Hebrew. The longest list contains 63 identified substances. These lists were apparently used by pharmacists for professional and business purposes as inventories of drugs, records, orders, or even receipts. Two hundred and six different drugs are mentioned in the drugs lists of which 167 are of plant origin, 16 are of animal origin, and the remaining 23 are inorganic. The lists point directly to the place they occupied on the shelves of the pharmacies that could be found in the lanes and alleys of the Jewish quarter of Cairo. The most frequently mentioned substance were myrobalan (27), pepper and saffron (21), lentisk (15), almond, basil, rose, rosemary (14), cattle products, camphor and spikenard (13).

A critical study of the manuscripts of Paryaya Muktavali available at Orissa

Though the Nidana book of Madhavakara has been very popular among Ayurvedic fraternity his other deeds on Dravyaguna, Cikitsa etc. could not come to lime light due to lack of sufficient number of manuscripts for comparison and editing. One such text is Paryaya Muktavali, manuscripts of which are plentily available in the State of Orissa. This modified text redacted by Hari Charana Sena, is a bright example of scribal error and missing of verses which occur during repeated scribe in palm leaf manuscript. This is a lexicon of drugs, which is prime necessity of Dravyaguna and Rasaśastra. Publication of such text will be an addition to the treasure of Ayurvedic texts.

[Courses of cure: the case of French patients of Samuel and Melanie Hahnemann (1834-1868)]

Based on the letters sent by French patients to Hahnemann and his wife (or written about them), this essay focuses on the behaviour of patients towards treatment rather than on their representations and interpretations of illness and health. Despite the fact that we don't know exactly who the authors of these letters were, it is clear that they all hope to obtain some of Hahnemann's medicines. The well-known demand for medicine at the beginning of the 19th Century was reinforced by the mystery surrounding homeopathic remedies and the specific way they were made available. Relying on theories which lent an important role to the nerves and the patient's character to explain the origins of sickness, patients hoped that Hahnemann and his new doctrine would be able to change both their life and their psychical characteristics. One can conclude that for the authors of such letters, writing about illness could be a means to construct new behaviour patterns and new attitudes towards health and sickness, rather than an illustration of existing medical, social and literary models.

Biography of Narahari -- the author of Raja-Nighantu

Narahari Pandita, who was the son of Iśvarasuri and resident of Kashmir was an erudite scholar of all branches of Sanskrit learning and was also well versed in regional languages of Karnataka, Maharastra and Andhra. His work Raja-Nighantu is also known as Nghantu Raja or Abhidhana Cudamani. His date may be placed in 17th century A.D. i.e. after Bhavamiśra. Some of the new and more interesting plants added are, Brahmadandi, Dhumrapatra, Ekavira, Hastiśundi, Jambu, Jhandu, Samudraphala, Svetamli, Sveta, Vrścika etc. Thus information about Narahari and his work is presented in this article.