A systematic methodology to assess the identity of plants in historical texts: A case study based on the Byzantine pharmacy text John the Physician's Therapeutics

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE

In recent decades, the study of historical texts has attracted research interest, particularly in ethnopharmacology. All studies of the materia medica cited in ancient and medieval texts share a concern, however, as to the reliability of modern identifications of these substances. Previous studies of European or Mediterranean texts relied mostly on authoritative dictionaries or glossaries providing botanical identities for the historical plant names in question. Several identities they suggest, however, are questionable and real possibility of error exists.

AIM OF THE STUDY

This study aims to develop and document a novel and interdisciplinary methodology providing more objective assessment of the identity of the plants (and minerals) described in these resources.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

We developed an iterative experimental approach, using the 13th century Byzantine recipe text John the Physician's Therapeutics in its Commentary version (JC) as a case study. The methodology has six stages and relies on comparative analyses including statistical evaluation of botanical descriptions and information about medicinal uses drawn from both historical and modern sources. Stages 1-4 create the dataset, stage 5 derives the primary outcomes to be reviewed by experts in stage 6.

RESULTS

Using Disocorides' De Materia Medica (DMM) (1st century CE) as the culturally related reference text for the botanical descriptions of the plants cited in JC, allowed us to link the 194 plants used medicinally in JC with 252 plants cited in DMM. Our test sample for subsequent analyses consisted of the 50 JC plant names (corresponding to 61 DMM plants) for which DMM holds rich morphological information, and the 130 candidate species which have been suggested in the literature as potential botanical identities of those 50 JC plant names. Statistical evaluation of the comparative analyses revealed that in the majority of the cases, our method detected the candidate species having a higher likelihood of being the correct attribution from among the pool of suggested candidates. Final assessment and revision provided a list of the challenges associated with applying our methodology more widely and recommendations on how to address these issues.

CONCLUSIONS

We offer this multidisciplinary approach to more evidence-based assessment of the identity of plants in historical texts providing a measure of confidence for each suggested identity. Despite the experimental nature of our methodology and its limitations, its application allowed us to draw conclusions about the validity of suggested candidate plants as well as to distinguish between alternative candidates of the same historical plant name. Fully documenting the methodology facilitates its application to historical texts of any kind of cultural or linguistic background.

Amazonian useful plants described in the book "Le Pays des Amazones" (1885) of the Brazilian propagandist Baron de Santa-Anna Nery: a historical and ethnobotanical perspective

BACKGROUND

Frederico José de Santa-Anna Nery (1848-1901) was a Brazilian Baron who referred to himself as a "volunteer propagandist" for Brazil in Europe, serving as an immigration agent to publicize the living conditions in the Amazon region, advocating for its development and modernization at the end of the nineteenth century. Santa-Anna Nery's most famous book is "Le Pays des Amazones" (The Lands of the Amazons), first published in 1885, which the author dedicated a chapter to introduce and report on the Amazonian useful plant species and its relationship with humans. The aim of this work is to understand the historical context and ethnobotanical value of the plant species in the Brazilian Amazon at the end of the nineteenth century through an analysis of the book "Le Pays des Amazones" (1885) by Baron de Santa-Anna Nery, as well as to bring to light the historical importance of this very influential propagandist, who has been forgotten nowadays.

METHODS

The original book "Le Pays des Amazones" (1885), as well as the original 3rd edition and its translated version into Portuguese, was carefully analyzed and all information about plants was systematized, with botanical names being updated. Finally, using the scientific name of medicinal plants alone or in combination with their traditional use, a search was carried out in databases in order to indicate current pharmacological studies that provide evidence about the described traditional uses.

RESULTS

A total of 156 plant species were identified in the book, although 132 species had their scientific names updated. These species belong to 45 different families, with Fabaceae and Arecaceae the most represented, and 109 plants are Brazilian native. Considering only the 36 medicinal plants, the main medicinal indications reported were astringent, purgative/laxative, stimulant and tonic, vermifuge, febrifuge, sudorific, emetic, diuretic and antidysenteric. Regarding other useful plants (non-medicinal), 97 species were cited for food, constructions and buildings, spices and condiments, ornaments and objects, carpentry, textile fibers, gums, oils, balms and essences, pigments and tanning, hunting and fishing.

CONCLUSIONS

When the book "Le Pays des Amazones" is analyzed from a timeless perspective, with a particular focus on historical ethnobotany, it is possible to observe the economic, social, and political importance of many useful plants for the Amazon at the end of the nineteenth century and how the relationship between local people, indigenous communities, and immigrants was established with plant biodiversity.

Overview of Dioscorides' recipes in Croatian books of folk recipes

The aim of this paper is to present an overview of Dioscorides' recipes from his work De materia medica which are found in Croatian folk medicine preserved in books of folk recipes called ljekaruše. The particularities of five published and analysed Croatian books of folk recipes from the 17 th and 18 th century are examined. Recipes with drugs of herbal and animal origin, which are most often mentioned in Croatian books of folk recipes, and which were available in folk medicine at the time, are compared with those from Dioscorides' work. Many herbal drugs described in books of folk recipes are today used in contemporary phytotherapy, and modern biomedical research reveals new bioactive substances and confirms new and potential biological activities in medicinal plants used in folk medicine, which is the basis for further study of De materia medica by Dioscorides and ethnomedicinal collections. Croatian books of folk recipes are a valuable resource for multidisciplinary study, including for medicinal and pharmaceutical historians, philologists and ethnologists.

Ca' Granda, Hortus simplicium: Restoring an Ancient Medicinal Garden of XV-XIX Century in Milan (Italy)

This work is based on the study of 150 majolica vases dated back to the mid XVII century that once preserved medicinal remedies prepared in the ancient Pharmacy annexed to the Ospedale Maggiore Ca' Granda in Milan (Lombardy, Italy). The Hortus simplicium was created in 1641 as a source of plant-based ingredients for those remedies. The main objective of the present work is to lay the knowledge base for the restoration of the ancient Garden for educational and informative purposes. Therefore, the following complementary phases were carried out: (i) the analysis of the inscriptions on the jars, along with the survey on historical medical texts, allowing for the positive identification of the plant ingredients of the remedies and their ancient use as medicines; (ii) the bibliographic research in modern pharmacological literature in order to validate or refute the historical uses; (iii) the realization of the checklist of plants potentially present in cultivation at the ancient Garden, concurrently with the comparison with the results of a previous in situ archaeobotanical study concerning pollen grains. For the species selection, considerations were made also regarding drug amounts in the remedies and pedoclimatic conditions of the study area. Out of the 150 vases, 108 contained plant-based remedies, corresponding to 148 taxa. The remedies mainly treated gastrointestinal and respiratory disorders. At least one of the medicinal uses was validated in scientific literature for 112 out of the 148 examined species. Finally, a checklist of 40 taxa, presumably hosted in the Hortus simplicium, was assembled.

Plant Adaptogens-History and Future Perspectives

Adaptogens are synthetic compounds (bromantane, levamisole, aphobazole, bemethyl, etc.) or plant extracts that have the ability to enhance the body’s stability against physical loads without increasing oxygen consumption. Extracts from Panax ginseng, Eleutherococcus senticosus, Rhaponticum carthamoides, Rhodiola rosea, and Schisandra chinensis are considered to be naturally occurring adaptogens and, in particular, plant adaptogens. The aim of this study is to evaluate the use of plant adaptogens in the past and now, as well as to outline the prospects of their future applications. The use of natural adaptogens by humans has a rich history—they are used in recovery from illness, physical weakness, memory impairment, and other conditions. About 50 years ago, plant adaptogens were first used in professional sports due to their high potential to increase the body’s resistance to stress and to improve physical endurance. Although now many people take plant adaptogens, the clinical trials on human are limited. The data from the meta-analysis showed that plant adaptogens could provide a number of benefits in the treatment of chronic fatigue, cognitive impairment, and immune protection. In the future, there is great potential to register medicinal products that contain plant adaptogens for therapeutic purposes.

Analysis of historical changes in traditional Chinese medicine based on an Indonesian collection of Chinese materia medica from c. 1870

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE

Traditional Chinese Medicine is subject to changes over time: product names, botanical ingredients, processing methods and uses have varied throughout the course of history. Historic collections of Chinese materia medica (CMM) are of great value for research on the evolvement, development and variability of Chinese herbal medicine over time. These changes may have a significant influence on the safety and efficiency of nowadays' clinical practice. Here we investigate a historic collection of Chinese medicinal products purchased in Indonesia in c. 1870, containing about 395 specimens.

AIM OF THE STUDY

This study compares the specimens contained in late 19th century collection of CMM with contemporary marketed materials by investigating changes in vernacular names, botanical identity and processing methods which are important aspects for safety and clinical practice today.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The contents and associated documentation of the CMM collection of Dr. C.H.A. Westhoff (University Museum Utrecht) were revised by means of morphological identification and study of the associated historic documentation. We compared this Westhoff collection with contemporary CMM, information from literature and various quality standards, including the official Chinese pharmacopoeia.

RESULTS

The Westhoff collection represents a unique, well preserved collection of Chinese materia medica, with original uniform bottles, Chinese labels and a partly intact handwritten catalogue. Among the 395 specimens (bottles) of CMM surveyed, there are 387 contain a single component drug, while eight contain multiple components drugs. A total of 293 of the 395 specimens are mentioned in the modern Chinese pharmacopoeia. Ca. 25% of the specimens had been processed, such as stir-fried with or without adjuvants. Our analysis of local Chinese names, botanical content and processing methods indicate that this collection originates from southern part of China, possibly including in the region of Taiwan and was meant as a showcase for pharmaceutical education and/or as curiosity object.

CONCLUSION

Differences in vernacular names, plant parts and processing methods between the Westhoff collection and the current Chinese pharmacopoeia illustrate the regional variety of CMM and changes in CMM in the course of time. This work contributes to the understanding of the evolvement of CMM from a historic perspective.

Geopolitics of bitterness: Deciphering the history and cultural biogeography of Quassia amara L

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE

Quassia amara L. recently came into the spotlight in French Guiana, when it became the object of a biopiracy claim. Due to the numerous use records throughout the Guiana shield, at least since the 18th century, a thorough investigation of its origin seemed relevant and timely. In the light of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Nagoya protocol, questions about the origin of local knowledge are important to debate.

AIM OF THE STUDY

Defining cultural biogeography as the dynamics through space and time of biocultural complexes, we used this theoretical framework to shed light on the complex biogeographical and cultural history of Q. amara. We explored in particular the possible transfer of medicinal knowledge on an Old World species to a botanically related New World one by enslaved Africans in Suriname.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Historical and contemporary literature research was performed by means of digitized manuscripts, archives and databases from the 17th to the 21st century. We retrieved data from digitized herbarium vouchers in herbaria of the Botanic Garden Meise (Belgium); Naturalis Biodiversity Center (the Netherlands); Missouri Botanical Garden, the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, the Field Museum (USA); Royal Botanic Gardens Kew (UK); the IRD Herbarium, French Guiana and the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle (France). Vernacular names were retrieved from literature and herbarium specimens and compared to verify the origin of Quassia amara and its uses.

RESULTS

Our exploration of digitized herbarium vouchers resulted in 1287 records, of which 661 were Q. amara and 636 were Q. africana. We observed that the destiny of this species, over at least 300 years, interweaves politics, economy, culture and medicine in a very complex way. Quassia amara's uses are difficult to attribute to specific cultural groups: the species is widely distributed in Central and South America, where it is popular among many ethnic groups. The species spread from Central to South America during the early 18th century due to political and economic reasons. This migration possibly resulted from simultaneous migration by religious orders (Jesuits) from Central America to northern South America and by Carib-speaking Amerindians (from northern South America to Suriname). Subsequently, through colonial trade networks, Q. amara spread to the rest of the world. The absence of African-derived local names in the Guiana shield suggests that Q. africana was not sufficiently familiar to enslaved Africans in the region that they preserved its names and transferred the associated medicinal knowledge to Q. amara.

CONCLUSIONS

Cultural biogeography has proven an interesting concept to reconstruct the dynamics of biocultural interactions through space and time, while herbarium databases have shown to be useful to decipher evolution of local plant knowledge. Tracing the origin of a knowledge is nevertheless a complex adventure that deserves time and interdisciplinary studies.

Marcgrave and Piso's plants for sale: The presence of plant species and names from the Historia Naturalis Brasiliae (1648) in contemporary Brazilian markets

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE

Parallelisms between current and historical medicinal practices as described in the seventeenth century treatise Historia Naturalis Brasiliae (HNB) provide us with an overview of traditional plant knowledge transformations. Local markets reflect the actual plant use in urban and rural surroundings, allowing us to trace cross-century similarities of ethnobotanical knowledge.

AIMS OF THE STUDY

We aim to verify in how far the HNB, created in seventeenth-century northeastern Brazil, correlates with contemporary plant use in the country by comparing the plant knowledge therein with recent plant market surveys at national level.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

We conducted a literature review on ethnobotanical market surveys in Brazil. We used the retrieved data on plant composition and vernacular names, together with our own fieldwork from the Ver-o-Peso market in Belém, to compare each market repertoire with the useful species in the HNB. We analyzed similarities among markets and the HNB with a Detrended Correspondence Analysis and by creating Venn diagrams. We analyzed the methods of the different markets to check whether they influenced our results.

RESULTS

Out of the 24 markets reviewed, the greatest similarities with the HNB are seen in northern Brazilian markets, both in plant composition and vernacular names, followed by the northeast. The least overlap is found with markets in the central west and Rio de Janeiro. Most of the shared vernacular names with the HNB belonged to languages of the Tupi linguistic family.

CONCLUSION

The similarity patterns in floristic composition among Brazilian markets and the HNB indicate the current wider distribution and trade of the species that Marcgrave and Piso described in 1648 in the northeast. Migration of indigenous groups, environmental changes, globalized and homogenous plant trade, and different market survey methods played a role in these results. The HNB is a reference point in time that captures a moment of colonial cultural transformations.

Ethnoveterinary botanical medicine in South Africa: A review of research from the last decade (2009 to 2019)

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE

Ethnoveterinary medicine (EVM) practices remain a common feature of South African animal husbandry, particularly in rural livestock healthcare. This review provides an update of research undertaken on South African EVM from 2009 until 2019.

AIM OF THE STUDY

This review collates information and investigates trends in the increasing field of EVM research in South Africa over the last decade.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A literature search was conducted using available databases including ScienceDirect, PubMed, Scopus and Google Scholar. Dissertations, theses, books and technical reports were also searched.

RESULTS

In the past decade, ethnoveterinary surveys conducted in South Africa report the use of 139 plants from 50 families used against 21 animal diseases and conditions. Leaves, roots and bark have remained popular plant parts used for EVM. In terms of livestock species reported, the major focus was on cattle, goats and poultry. Only four of the nine provinces in the country have been surveyed.

CONCLUSIONS

Relatively few publications reporting on ethnoveterinary surveys have originated from South Africa. These papers refer to many plants used for a variety of commonly encountered animal diseases and afflictions. With reference to recently published guidelines on conducting ethnobotanical surveys, several recommendations can be made to improve the robustness of surveys documenting the use of plants for EVM in South Africa.

A review of the antimicrobial potential of herbal drugs used in popular Italian medicine (1850s-1950s) to treat bacterial skin diseases

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE

Before the advent of modern antibiotics, microbial infections were treated with herbal medicine or cauterization. Literature from the latter half of the nineteenth to the early mid-twentieth century, when antibiotics became widely available, arguably holds the most progressive information about herbal remedies to treat bacterial skin diseases. The corpus of literature produced in Italy during that period is not easily accessible and mostly out of print.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

Plant-based remedies utilized in popular Italian medicine to treat anthrax, boils, erysipelas, impetigo, pustules, and whitlow were sourced from literature indexed in and available through the National Library Service website of the Italian Libraries Network. The remedies are assessed for their antimicrobial potential based on a detailed search of the herbal drug species in scientific databases.

RESULTS

A considerable part of the reviewed recipes included specific excipients (41 out of 139) and others were produced with fresh plant material (48 out of 139). Out of the 52 identified herbal drug species used in popular Italian medicine against dermatologic infections, extracts of 43 were shown to have moderate in vitro activity against Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria.

CONCLUSION

The antibacterial activity of the extracts and pure compounds as reported in the reviewed literature is mostly based on in vitro assays and generally does not encourage follow up studies. The effectiveness of the reported recipes, which include fresh plant material and excipients can only be assessed through in vivo studies. Those remedies including herbal drugs with reported antimicrobial activity might have the potential as complementary therapies. The reviewed plant based antimicrobial recipes might serve as inspirations in the search for alternative topical antibacterial strategies and the search for their synergistic and potentiating ingredients.

Historical ethnobotanical review of medicinal plants used to treat children diseases in Romania (1860s-1970s)

BACKGROUND

Romanian ethnopediatrics has a long history of medicinal plant use. The main objective of the present review was to identify, collect, systematize, and prioritize the available bibliographical data related to medicinal plants traditionally used to treat various pediatric diseases in Romania during the 1860s-1970s.

METHODS

Information was mainly obtained by manual systematic search in various relevant historical works focused on the traditional use of medicinal plants in Romania (1860s-1970s), found in the Archives of Romanian Academy Library and National Romanian Library.

RESULTS

A total of 153 medicinal plants belonging to 52 families were identified as having ethnopediatric significance. The plant traditional indications, targeted body systems, parts used, and way of administration were provided. We have also proposed one index (expressed as percentage) in order to assess the ethnopediatric applicability area of species: ethnopediatric relative therapeutic versatility (ERTV), which was calculated on the basis of the number of distinct uses mentioned for a species. The species identified to have the highest ERTV scores were Dryopteris filix-mas (100%), Gratiola officinalis (85.71%), Allium sativum (71.42%), Eryngium planum (71.42%), Juglans regia (71.42%), Matricaria chamomilla (71.42%), Plantago major (71.42%).

CONCLUSIONS

The present study exposed for the first time to the international scientific community important ethnopediatric information contained in several local Romanian bibliographical resources that could guide the local and international researchers towards new directions of plant valorization.

A Review Article About Some Herbs Affecting Vitiligo Based on Avicenna's Canon

BACKGROUND

Vitiligo is a pigmentary disorder characterizing by white macules due to loss of melanocytes. Vitiligo affects about 1 to 4% of people around the world. The treatment of vitiligo has a high cost and the long process of treatment in spite of no complete remedy. It has various psychological side-effects such as depression and anxiety affecting the quality of life seriously. Avicenna in his Canon treated these patients over a thousand years ago. This study aimed to introduce some herbal drugs in vitiligo based on the Canon of Avicenna besides the conventional medical treatments.

METHODS

This is a review study, according to the Canon with the term Baras and also searching through the electronic websites with the keywords vitiligo, treatment, and herbal drugs.

RESULTS

The study found some herbs affecting the vitiligo from the Canon.

CONCLUSION

The researchers suggest conducting clinical trials on the patients with vitiligo based on the Canon besides the conventional techniques to obtain a better result in the treatment.

Medicinal plants of the Caatinga, northeastern Brazil: Ethnopharmacopeia (1980-1990) of the late professor Francisco José de Abreu Matos

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL IMPORTANCE

The Caatinga (semi-arid region), is an exclusively Brazilian biome. Considering the scarcity of ethnobotanical and ethnopharmacological studies in this region before the year 2000, this study presents data from ethnobotanical expeditions carried out between 1980 and 1990, by the late professor Francisco José de Abreu Matos (1924-2008). The information revealed in this present work are valuable and remained unpublished until now.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The objective was to organize, systematize and analyze ethnobotanical and ethnopharmacological data using ethnobotanical analytical techniques. The most cited native species in each use category were selected for literature review of the pharmacological studies related to their ethnomedicinal uses.

RESULTS

Revision of the botanical nomenclature led to the botanical confirmation of 272 plants, of which 84 (30.9%) were reclassified. These represented 71 families and 220 genera that were cited 1957 times. 153 (56.3%) of these plant species are native to Brazil, of which 36 (23.4%) are endemic to the Caatinga. The use reports (RU) associated with these plants, according to the body systems (ICPC-2) in decreasing order of UR and the ICF values were respiratory system (93 species, 407 UR, ICF 0.77), digestive system (119 species, 373 UR, ICF 0.68), general and nonspecific symptoms (95 species, 219 UR, ICF 0.58), female genital system (60 species, 184 UR, ICF 0.68), skin (71 species, 156 UR, ICF 0.55), cardiovascular (50 species, 99 UR, ICF 0.50), blood and immune system diseases (46 species, 96 UR, ICF 0.53), urological (44 species, 88 UR, ICF 0.51), musculoskeletal (33 species, 80 UR, ICF 0.60), psychological (21 species, 71 UR, ICF 0.60), while others represent less than 10.0% of the UR. The most cited plants in the disease categories were Dysphania ambrosioides (28), Pombalia calceolaria (28) Hymenaea courbaril (26), Myracrodruon urundeuva (50), Brassica juncea subsp. integrifolia (16), Scoparia dulcis (22), Phyllanthus niruri (14), Egletes viscosa (25), Lippia alba (16), Erythroxylum vacciniifolium (9) and Salvia rosmarinus (21). The most prominent clades of the medicinal plants based on cluster analysis were the Lamiids (Euasterids)-497 UR and the Fabids (Eurosids I) - 468 UR. Association between certain phylogenetic clades and use-category were also observed and discussed.

CONCLUSION

This study demonstrated a new approach in ethnopharmacology by mapping plant usages to diseases prevalent in a community from old ethnobotanical travel reports. In addition to revealing the therapeutic potential of Caatinga species using cluster analysis.

Bodies of the plant and Animal Kingdom: An illustrated manuscript on materia medica in the Netherlands (ca. 1800)

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE

Around 1800, Amsterdam was a global trade hub for materia medica of Dutch, European and exotic origin. Contemporary knowledge on medicinal plants in academic circles has been well documented in local pharmacopoeia, illustrated herbals and catalogues of botanic gardens. Until the end of the ancient regime, physicians, surgeons and apothecaries were trained how to use plants in their specific guild or Collegium Medicum. Little is known, however, on how the plant collectors and merchants that provided the pharmaceutical substances to apothecaries learnt to recognise the variety of medicinal products.

AIM OF THE STUDY

To analyse the content, origin, purpose and scientific importance of an anonymous, undated, hand-written Dutch manuscript on materia medica, entitled Corpora ex Regno Vegetabili/Animali (Bodies of the Plant/Animal kingdom) kept by the Artis Library of the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

We digitised the entire manuscript and dated the paper by means of its watermark. We identified the plant and animal species using the historic Dutch and Latin names, the illustrations and historic literature. We compared the plant properties and uses to contemporary literature to check whether the information in the manuscript was original or copied from another source.

RESULTS

The paper was produced between 1759 and 1816 in Zaandam, the Netherlands. The manuscript contains 19 substances of animal origin, one mineral and 273 plants and plant-derived products, which belong to ca. 260 species. While most plants are native or cultivated in the Netherlands, 111 plant entries (105 spp.) represent exotic products, imported from as far as Madagascar and Australia. A total of 134 illustrations were cut out from a 1549 Dutch edition of the New Herbal by Leonhard Fuchs (1543), but only 69% correspond to the correct species. The manuscript contains detailed descriptions on growth locations, field characteristics, flowering season, provenance and quality of the medicinal products, including methods to detect forgery. The author mostly described humoral properties of the plants rather than listing medicinal recipes. We did not find evidence that he copied his texts from other sources, but the Dutch and Latin names correspond largely with the Amsterdam pharmacopoeia from 1795.

CONCLUSIONS

The author's extensive knowledge on trade names, quality and origin of materia medica and his refrain from using literature suggests he could have been a merchant, an intermediary between herb cultivators, overseas traders and apothecaries. This manuscript offers a unique insight in the global trade in medicinal products and the circulation of knowledge in non-academic circles around 1800.

Historical ethnopharmacology of the herbalists from Krummhübel in the Sudety Mountains (seventeenth to nineteenth century), Silesia

BACKGROUND

Krummhübel (after 1945, Karpacz) in the Sudety Mountains (now SW Poland) was called "the village of pharmacists". At the end of the seventeenth century, there were 57 households, of which about 40 were inhabited by herbalists. Krummhübel herbalists were the first in the Sudety region who applied medicinal mixtures for the treatment of various diseases (using, among others, plants, oils, minerals and even viper venom) in contrast to previous herbalists who only indicated the use of individual plant species for specific diseases. Riesengebirge (in Polish Karkonosze) potions were sold in Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland and Russia, and some of them could even be purchased in Scandinavia and England. The purpose of this paper is an ethnopharmacological analysis of historical texts of herbalists from Krummhübel. Based on their recipes, we analysed the use reports of drugs. Recently, research on ethnobotany and ethnopharmacological analyses of historical materials or egodocuments related to formulations used in folk medicine have become an important source of acquiring knowledge about new medicines.

METHODS

Based on 46 recipes of Krummhübel herbalists re-written by Reitzig (1943), we analysed the use reports of drugs which included plant taxa and other constituents such as animal formulations, fungi, inorganic and organic substances and minerals as well as tinctures (with alcohol/spirit) and elixirs (without alcohol/spirit). For each usage mentioned in the text, we recorded (i) the putative botanical identity of the taxon; (ii) the plant family or origin of other than the plant constituent; (iii) the reported plant part; (iv) the number of the recipe; (v) the name of the recipe; (vi) the vernacular name of ingredient; (vii) the described symptom, ailment or specific use; (viii) our modern (viz. biomedical) interpretation of the described symptom or ailment; (ix) the mode of administration; and (x) the category of use under which we filed the specific use. We also cross-checked the medicinal plants of Krummhübel herbalists with the species described in old manuscripts and regional surveys and compared their use with contemporary plant use.

RESULTS

The paper introduces the generated database comprising 348 use reports of 46 drugs based on 70 plant taxa and other constituents. Besides, we address patterns such as the frequent recommendation of Fabaceae herbs for respiratory system issue and gynaecology and Asteraceae for respiratory system and cardiovascular problems. Gastrointestinal use reports are based on Asphodelaceae, Burseraceae and Rosaceae species.

CONCLUSIONS

Remedies that lost importance over time as well as drugs used for diseases now controlled by conventional medicine may be interesting starting points for research on herbal medicine and drug discovery. It seems to be important to attempt to reproduce therapeutic mixtures from the preserved recipes of Krummhübel herbalists, which offers an opportunity to learn more about the real effects of the former medicines and their therapeutic activity. The obtained data can also be used to search for new drugs.

Medicinal plants brought by Indian indentured immigrants: A comparative review of ethnopharmacological uses between Mauritius and India

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE

Mauritius is famous for its floricultural diversity and traditions practiced across the island by various ethnic groups. During the British rule in the 1835s, Indian indentured labourers migrated to Mauritius and played a very important role in shaping the Mauritian culture. They brought along their high heritage of traditional knowledge of certain medicinal herbs and spices. Nonetheless, there has been no comparative study to investigate whether these past traditional knowledge are still preserved in Mauritius and India.

AIM OF THE STUDY

To document and compare the traditional uses of medicinal herbs and spices brought by Indian indentured labourers with their current uses in Mauritius and India, and to review pharmacological studies of such plants.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Locally published textbooks, research dissertations, and relevant records from the 'Mauritiana' section of the University of Mauritius library were scrutinised for possible early records of such herbs and spices brought by Indian indentured immigrants. Field trips and site visits to Mauritius Herbarium and The National Folk Museum were conducted to gather data on their traditional uses as practiced by the Indian indentured immigrants. A literature search was performed to gather the current ethnomedicinal uses of these plants in Mauritius and India using key databases such as ScienceDirect and PubMed, as well as thesis from local university website. Pharmacological studies on these plants were also reviewed in an attempt to compare the ethnomedicinal uses against reported ailments.

RESULTS

Indian labourers brought 18 medicinal plants for medicinal purposes as documented at the folk museum of Indian Immigration. Piper betle L., Azadirachta indica A. Juss., and Curcuma longa L. were common plants used by Indian indentured immigrants against a wide range of ailments. Data obtained from recent ethnomedicinal surveys revealed that A. indica and C. longa were the most traditionally used plants in India, while in Mauritius, C. longa was the most popular plant followed by Allium sativum L. and Ocimum tenuiflorum L. It was also found that all these plants are currently being used against a wide range of diseases in both countries. In addition, several studies have highlighted the pharmacological properties such as analgesic, anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial, anti-pyretic, and anti-diabetic for some plants.

CONCLUSION

This investigation can be considered as a first attempt to document and compare traditional knowledge of medicinal plants brought by Indian immigrants. We observed that some of these knowledge are preserved and still practiced in Mauritius. It is anticipated that this study will revive the interest in safeguarding and promoting the ancestral knowledge on the uses of such plants.

Ethnopharmacological study of Sephardic remedies in the 19th century: The "Livro de Milizinas"

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE

The Sephardic or Judeo-Spanish communities kept a cultural heritage extremely relevant which is recognizable through the peculiar form of their language and practices. Medicine was one of the main professional activities among Jews of Spain before their expulsion in 1492. We expected to find ingredients and recipes in the Sephardic traditional medicine related to classical medicine and to modern ethnopharmacology of Spain, but also influenced by the host countries. Recipes for specific diseases could be compared with modern ethnopharmacology. Although the basic language of the recipes is Judeo-Spanish, it presents local variants and names which are not only dialectal Spanish, but also Turkish, Hebrew or Bosnian.

METHODS

The main source of information for Sephardic folk medicine are the specimens of the "Livro de Milizinas" printed in Thessaloniki and Smyrna (Izmir) during the 19th century. Others are some documents on pharmacy conserved in Bosnia associated to the Papo family of Sephardic Aktars or Attars (Ottoman herbalists) and the oral tradition in the Sephardic communities of Asia, Europe and the Americas. In order to analyze these formularies, we have studied the recipes in eleven different sources systematized in an Excel^® 2010 book. We focused on formulas that are not merely rituals instead contain specific ingredients and pathologies. Specific dictionaries were generated in Excel^® 2010, to standardize names of ingredients and pathologies.

RESULTS

In the 502 complete recipes and variants studied, 107 pathologies and 154 different ingredients appear. Among ingredients, 93 are plants, 38 animals and 23 mineral substances. The most common pathologies in the recipes correspond to infectious diseases, headache, epistaxis, parasites and the "espanto". These ingredients received 397 different vernacular names, being prevalent those in Spanish (303) followed by those in Turkish. Preparations recorded are simple, easily made at home, not requiring special tools or hardware. In studies dated 1845 in Bulgaria the forms of preparation and administration are similar. Topic preparations externally applied are prevalent in numbers doubling the oral administration on the contrary of modern ethnopharmacology studies in Thessaloniki where dominate internal uses over external ones. The books of medicines of Smyrna and Thessaloniki are very similar, if not almost identical. The "Livro de Milizinas" constitute a peculiar Sephardic text within the Ottoman style of medicine. The proximity in the analyses with Ottoman sources (Ottoman pharmacopoeias, Turkish Aktar shops and Medieval Cairo Jewish pharmacopoeia) is due to the high proportion of ingredients in common. After excluding animal and mineral ingredients of the analyses, modern ethnobotanical records from Greece and Turkey appear closer to the Sephardic main sources. The rest of Sephardic sources with notably smaller lists of ingredients represent fragments of mostly oral transmitted tradition and treat pathologies such as evil eye or "espanto". The recipes of the Sephardic of Bosnia comprise pathologies such as plague, cholera, typhus or gastroenteritis. Ingredients, largely of plant origin, to 93, are still in use in phytotherapy and/or local medical-pharmaceutical ethnobotany in Turkey or Greece.

CONCLUSIONS

The Sephardic materia medica presented in the "Livro de Milizinas" is eclectic, adapted to an urban environment and to the prevalent pathologies of the second half of the 19th century, within the main cultural framework of the Ottoman Empire but with peculiarities characteristic of Sephardic Culture. These can be traced back to the period immediately after the expulsion of Sephardic from Spain. Their relationships with other modern sources are scarce, even in terms of pathologies.

Ancient treatment for lice: a source of suggestions for carriers of other infectious diseases?

Louse infestation is one of the oldest contagious pestilential diseases of humankind, which has recently re-emerged in several developing countries as well as in homeless individuals and migrants. The present work provides the first phase of an historical excursus of louse remedies based on the classics of pharmaceutical literature, codes, pharmacopoeia and treatises. The second phase involves a literature search, based on the principal medical databases (SciFinder, Pubmed, Google Scholar, ISI-Web of Science and Scopus), to match ancient raw materials and active principles for the treatment of pediculosis and their possible applications, with other current infectious pathologies transmitted by different carriers. In this regard, Rhododendron tomentosum has revealed repellent insect activity, particularly against Aedes aegypti, responsible for Dengue fever, Chikungunya, Zika fever, Mayaro, yellow fever and other infectious diseases. Petroselinum crispum is an insecticide employed for resistant strains of A. aegypti. In the case of Delphinium staphisagria, the phytochemical profile was further investigated with the identification of further molecules in addition to delphinine. The latter shows interesting activities against Trypanosoma cruzi and Leishmania. Anthemis pyrethrum, now renamed as Anacyclus pyrethrum, although not containing pyrethrins present in several plants of the genus Chrysanthemum, revealed pediculicidal activity but did not produce satisfactory results in antiprotozoal activity.

Harnessing Biomedical Natural Language Processing Tools to Identify Medicinal Plant Knowledge from Historical Texts

The growing amount of data describing historical medicinal uses of plants from digitization efforts provides the opportunity to develop systematic approaches for identifying potential plant-based therapies. However, the task of cataloguing plant use information from natural language text is a challenging task for ethnobotanists. To date, there have been only limited adoption of informatics approaches used for supporting the identification of ethnobotanical information associated with medicinal uses. This study explored the feasibility of using biomedical terminologies and natural language processing approaches for extracting relevant plant-associated therapeutic use information from historical biodiversity literature collection available from the Biodiversity Heritage Library. The results from this preliminary study suggest that there is potential utility of informatics methods to identify medicinal plant knowledge from digitized resources as well as highlight opportunities for improvement.

[Traditional nasal therapy in Uighur medicine]

Nasal therapy, extensively documented in the ancient Uighur medical literature, is one of the external therapies of Uighur medicine. Based on the relevant records of 14 Uighur medical works, the application, classification, clinical features, and medications characteristics of nasal therapy were preliminarily sorted out. The results show that the nasal therapy can be divided into 7 categories, covering more than 200 kinds of common medicinal herbs, 8 kinds of processing methods and 10 kinds of preparations. Clinically, there is a large number of nasal therapy prescriptions, with flexible administration of prescriptions and medications, significant features of comprehensive therapy, with significance of application for further development.

Italian folk plant-based remedies to heal headache (XIX-XX century)

BACKGROUND

Headache has been recognized since antiquity. From the late nineteenth to the early to mid-twentieth century, Italian folk remedies to treat headache were documented in a vast corpus of literature sources.

AIM

The purpose of this paper is to bring to light the plant-based treatments utilized by Italian folk medicine to heal headache in an attempt to discuss these remedies from a modern pharmacological point of view. Moreover, we compare the medical applications described by Hippocrates, Pliny the Elder, Dioscorides, Galen and Serenus Sammonicus with those utilized by Italian folk medicine to check if they result from a sort of continuity of use by over two thousand years.

RESULTS

A detailed search of the scientific data banks such as Medline and Scopus was undertaken to uncover recent results concerning the anti-inflammatory, anti-nociceptive and analgesic activities of the plants. Fifty-eight (78.4%) plant-based remedies have shown in vivo, in vitro or in human trials a large spectrum of anti-inflammatory, anti-nociceptive and analgesic activities. Moreover, thirty-one of remedies (41.9%) were already included in the pharmacopoeia between the 5th century BC and the 2nd century AD.

CONCLUSION

Italian folk medicine could be a promising source of knowledge and could provide evidences for active principles that have not as of yet been fully used for their potential.

The historical use of medicinal plants in traditional and scientific medicine

There is a strong connection between man and nature, ever since his first origins, the man discovered the benefits of the plant kingdom, which he used to feed himself, to heal and to survive. Following the use of eatable, medicinal and poisonous plants takes us into the distant past. The man's first knowledge about plants passed from generation to generation. The ancients Chinese, Egyptians, Indians, Greeks, Romans and the Old Slavs knew a large number of medicinal plants. That knowledge was carried over to other nations as well. Thanks to its geographical location and climate condition, our country is abundant and very rich in variety of species of medicinal plants. In the Middle Ages, there were written many herbal manuals that described the use and procedures in healing with medicinal plants. Many plants were known by the oldest civilizations and they were used by the people for thousands of years. Moreover, today's science has confirmed their effectiveness in the treatment of different diseases.

The Medicinal Usage and Restriction of Ginseng in Britain and America, 1660-1900

This article demonstrates the medicinal usage of ginseng in the West from 1660 to 1914. Asian[Korea] ginseng was first introduced into England in the early 17th century, and North American ginseng was found in the early 18th century. Starting from the late 17th century doctors prescribed ginseng to cure many different kinds of ailments and disease such as: fatigue general lethargy, fever, torpidity, trembling in the joints, nervous disorder, laughing and crying hysteria, scurvy, spermatic vessel infection, jaundice, leprosy, dry gripes and constipation, strangury, yellow fever, dysentery, infertility and addictions of alcohol, opium and tobacco, etc. In the mid-18th century Materia Medica began to specify medicinal properties of ginseng and the patent medicines containing ginseng were widely circulated. However, starting in the late 18th century the medicinal properties of ginseng began to be disparaged and major pharmacopoeias removed ginseng from their contents. The reform of the pharmacopoeia, influenced by Linnaeus in botany and Lavoisier in chemistry, introduced nomenclature that emphasized identifying ingredients and active constituents. Western medicine at this period, however, failed to identify and to extract the active constituents of ginseng. Apart from the technical underdevelopment of the period, the medical discourses reveal that the so-called chemical experiment of ginseng were conducted with unqualified materials and without proper differentiation of various species of ginseng.

Herbal medicinal products - Evidence and tradition from a historical perspective

BACKGROUND

Aside from the fully licensed herbal medicines there are products on the European pharmaceutical market which are registered by virtue of their longstanding traditional use. The normal registration procedure does not apply to them because presently they do not meet the legal requirements for a full license as set out in the relevant European Union Directive. One of these requirements, "proof of tradition", has so far been dealt with in different ways and fails to meet the criteria of good practice.

METHOD

This analysis is based on a selective literature search in PubMed and in databases of medical and pharmaceutical history, interviews with licensing experts, a consensus meeting attended by researchers with a background in general medicine, phytotherapy, medical and pharmaceutical history, biometry, ethnopharmacology, pharmacognosy and the pharmaceutical industry.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The 2004 EU Directive, which governs the registration of Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products and demands proof of tradition, is a regulatory construct and, above all, the outcome of a political process that has ended in a pragmatic compromise. The concept of tradition applied in the Directive does not sufficiently reflect the semantic breadth of the term. The only condition defined is that a specific commercial preparation needs to have been on the market for 30 years (15 of them inside the EU). Such an approach does not make full scientific use of the evidence available because the information excerpted from historical sources, if adequately processed, may yield valuable insights. This applies to indications, modes of application, efficacy and product safety (innocuousness). Such criteria should enter in full into the benefit-risk-analysis of applied preparations, in the registration process as well as in the therapeutic practice.

CONCLUSION

When registering Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products the criterion of evidence-based medicine will only be met if all the facts available are assessed and evaluated, over and above the formally stipulated regulatory provisions (30 years, product reference). To this end, the scientific methods (from among the natural, life or cultural sciences), which are recognized as authoritative in each case, must be applied.

Ethnopharmacological approach to the herbal medicines of the "Elements Alpha to Delta" in Nikolaos Myrepsos׳ Dynameron. Part II

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE

Dynameron is a Byzantine medical compendium, divided into 24 sections, the "Elements", containing 2667 recipes, most of which inherited by previous physicians of the classic ancient Greek and Hellenistic, and imperial Roman periods.

AIM OF THE STUDY

In continuation to our previous study concerning the first and largest chapter of the "Element Alpha" of Nikolaos Myrepsos׳ Dynameron (Valiakos et al., 2015), this paper focuses on the plants quoted in the recipes of the eight following chapters entitled "About Salts", "About Honeypacks" and "About Spreads", all belonging to the same "Element Alpha"; "About Antitussives" and "About Suppositories" belonging to the "Element Beta"; "About women's Cathartics" belonging to the "Element Gamma"; "About Drossaton" and "About Diachrisma", both belonging to the "Element Delta".

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Our main primary source material was the codex kept in the National Library of France (in Paris) under the number grec. 2243, which is the older and larger codex of Dynameron (Valiakos et al., 2015).

RESULTS

The present study led us to the interpretation of 277 plants under different names, among which we recognized 57 medicinal plants listed by the European Medicines Agency, one of them with negative monograph (i.e. Chelidonium majus). In addition, there are identified taxa related to those quoted by EMA as herbal medicines. The plants appearing in the examined Elements belong to various families of which the most frequent are: Apiaceae 10.11%; Lamiaceae 7.22%; Asteraceae 6.86%; Rosaceae 6.5% and Fabaceae 6.14%.

CONCLUSIONS

A total of 277 species have been catalogued, most of which are referred in our previous publication (Valiakos et al., 2015). Among them, 56 plants still play a very important role in medical practice, as they are used as traditional herbal medicines (www.ema.eu). This evidence is a proof that the use of medicinal plants remains valuable from the ancient times until today. The recipes, in contrast to older medical compendia, contain precise measurements of ingredients and dosages for every drug, which seem to reflect empirical logic.

Antibacterial activity of medicinal plants from The Physicians of Myddvai, a 14th century Welsh medical manuscript

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE

Antimicrobial drug resistance is a growing threat to global public health. Historical records and herbal texts relating to traditional Celtic medicine indicate an extensive pharmacopeia of plants for treating infections likely caused by microbes. However, a major barrier for successful integration of these remedies into mainstream practice is the current lack of accurate interpretation and scientific validation.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

We investigated the flora of the Isle of Arran, Scotland, via in situ targeted screening of 83 out of 138 plants identified in Meddygion Myddvai (a 14th century Welsh manuscript) to treat conditions related to microbial infections, and an additional 18 plants from modern ethnobotanical knowledge on the island (Scottish School of Herbal Medicine). In a follow-up proof-of-concept study, bioassay-guided fractionation was performed to identify bioactive constituents from two high scoring hits that inhibited Staphylococcus aureus (Gram-positive) and Escherichia coli (Gram-negative) bacterial growth.

RESULTS

67 historical plants (80.7%) and 14 modern plants (77.8%) were found to have detectable levels of antimicrobial activity when tested using Mobile Discovery kits, with human saliva as a source of bacteria for screening. Sabinene, a natural bicyclic monoterpene from juniper "berries" (Juniperus communis L.) and alliin, a natural sulfoxide from garlic cloves (Allium sativum L.), were isolated and confirmed as primary antibacterial leads.

CONCLUSION

Using historical medical sources such as those associated with traditional Celtic medicine to guide rigorous, evidence-based scientific investigation, provides additional leads for new and alternative bioactive molecules for combating bacterial diseases.

Traditional Mediterranean and European herbal medicines

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE

Written history allows tracing back Mediterranean and European medical traditions to Greek antiquity. The epidemiological shift triggered by the rise of modern medicine and industrialization is reflected in contemporary reliance and preferences for certain herbal medicines.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

We sketch the development and transmission of written herbal medicine through Mediterranean and European history and point out the opportunity to connect with modern traditions.

RESULTS

An ethnopharmacological database linking past and modern medical traditions could serve as a tool for crosschecking contemporary ethnopharmacological field-data as well as a repository for data mining. Considering that the diachronic picture emerging from such a database has an epidemiological base this could lead to new hypotheses related to evolutionary medicine.

CONCLUSION

The advent of systems pharmacology and network pharmacology opens new perspectives for studying past and current herbal medicine. Since a large part of modern drugs has its roots in ancient traditions one may expect new leads for drug development from novel systemic studies, as well as evidence for the activity of certain herbal preparations.

Medicinal Formulas and Experiential Knowledge in the Seventeenth-Century Epistemic Exchange between China and Europe

This essay deals with the medical recipe as an epistemic genre that played an important role in the cross-cultural transmission of knowledge. The article first compares the development of the recipe as a textual form in Chinese and European premodern medical cultures. It then focuses on the use of recipes in the transmission of Chinese pharmacology to Europe in the second half of the seventeenth century. The main sources examined are the Chinese medicinal formulas translated—presumably—by the Jesuit Michael Boym and published in Specimen Medicinae Sinicae (1682), a text that introduced Chinese pulse medicine to Europe. The article examines how the translator rendered the Chinese formulas into Latin for a European audience. Arguably, the translation was facilitated by the fact that the recipe as a distinct epistemic genre had developed, with strong parallels, in both Europe and China. Building on these parallels, the translator used the recipe as a shared textual format that would allow the transfer of knowledge between the two medical cultures.

Is there nothing new under the sun? The influence of herbals and pharmacopoeias on ethnobotanical traditions in Albacete (Spain)

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE

This paper has two overarching aims: (1) presenting the results of studying the Albacete tariff of medicines of 1526 and (2) broadly analyzing the origin and influences of medicinal traditional knowledge in the region of Albacete, Spain. We use historical and modern literature that may have influenced this knowledge. Our primary goal was to determine the ingredients used in the pharmacy in the 16th century CE in Albacete through the analysis of the tariff, and our secondary goal was to investigate until when ingredients and uses present in pharmacy and herbals persisted in later periods.

METHODS

The identity of medicines and ingredients was determined by analyzing contemporary pharmacopoeias and classical pharmaceutical references. We analyzed further 21 sources (manuscripts, herbals, and books of medicines, pharmacopoeias, pharmacy inventories, and modern ethnobotanical records) for the presence/absence of ingredients and complex formulations of the tariff. Using factorial and cluster analysis and Bayesian inference applied to evolution models (reversible-jump Markov chain Monte Carlo), we compared textual sources. Finally, we analyzed the medicinal uses of the top 10 species in terms of frequency of citation to assess the dependence of modern ethnobotanical records on Renaissance pharmacy and herbals, and, ultimately, on Dioscorides.

RESULTS

In Albacete 1526, we determined 101 medicines (29 simple drugs and 72 compound medicines) comprising 187 ingredients (85% botanical, 7.5% mineral, and 7.5% zoological substances). All composed medicines appear standardized in the pharmacopoeias, notably in the pharmacopoeia of Florence from 1498. However, most were no longer in use by 1750 in the pharmacy, and were completely absent in popular herbal medicine in Albacete 1995 as well as in Alta Valle del Reno (Italy) in 2014. Among the ingredients present in different formulation are the flowers of Rosa gallica, honey (Apis mellifera), the roots of Nardostachys jatamansi, and Convolvulus scammonia, pistils of Crocus sativus, grapes and raisins (Vitis vinifera), rhizomes of Zingiber officinale, bark of Cinnamomum verum, leaves and fruits of Olea europaea, mastic generally of Pistacia lentiscus, and wood of Santalum album. The statistical analysis of sources produces four well-separated clusters (Renaissance Herbals and Pharmacopoeias, Ethnobotany and Folk Medicine, Old phytotherapy, and Modern phytotherapy including Naturopathy) confirming our a priori classification. The clade of Renaissance Herbals and Pharmacopoeias appears separated from the rest in 97% of bootstrapped trees. Bayesian inference produces a tree determined by an initial set of two well-distinct core groups of ingredients: 64, locally used in Mediterranean Europe during centuries; and 45, imported, used in pharmacy during centuries. Complexity reached its maximum in Albacete 1526 and contemporary pharmacopoeias, gradually decreasing over time. The analysis of medicinal uses of the top 10 ingredients showed low coincidence between Dioscorides and different Renaissance herbals or medical treatises and of all of them with ethnobotany in Albacete.

CONCLUSIONS

Regarding our question: is there something new under the sun? In some aspects, the answer is "No". The contrast between expensive drugs, highly valued medicines, and unappreciated local wild medicinal plants persists since the Salerno's school of medicine. Old medicine in Mediterranean Europe, as reflected by Albacete 1526 tariff of medicines, involved strict formulations and preferences for certain ingredients despite other ingredients locally available but underappreciated. This confirms the fact that any system of medicine does not get to use all available resources. Ethnobiological records of materia medica, in rural areas of Albacete, describe systems with a high degree of stability and resilience, where the use of local resources, largely wild but also cultivated, is predominant in contrast with the weight of imported exotic products in pharmacy.

Discovery of Bioactive Compounds by the UIC-ICBG Drug Discovery Program in the 18 Years Since 1998

The International Cooperative Biodiversity Groups (ICBG) Program based at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) is a program aimed to address the interdependent issues of inventory and conservation of biodiversity, drug discovery and sustained economic growth in both developing and developed countries. It is an interdisciplinary program involving the extensive synergies and collaborative efforts of botanists, chemists and biologists in the countries of Vietnam, Laos and the USA. The UIC-ICBG drug discovery efforts over the past 18 years have resulted in the collection of a cumulative total of more than 5500 plant samples (representing more than 2000 species), that were evaluated for their potential biological effects against cancer, HIV, bird flu, tuberculosis and malaria. The bioassay-guided fractionation and separation of the bioactive plant leads resulted in the isolation of approximately 300 compounds of varying degrees of structural complexity and/or biological activity. The present paper summarizes the significant drug discovery achievements made by the UIC-ICBG team of multidisciplinary collaborators in the project over the period of 1998-2012 and the projects carried on in the subsequent years by involving the researchers in Hong Kong.

Cardiovascular aspects of geriatric medicines in traditional Persian medicine; a review of phytochemistry and pharmacology

BACKGROUND

Geriatrics are a group of patients over 65 years and with multiple comorbidities and different functional impairments. Apart from decline in body mass, presence of exhaustion and general fatigue, an aged person may also suffer from various disorders. Approximately, around 30% of geriatric subjects have significant cardiovascular ailments. Apart from the intensive management of cardiovascular aspects in elderly, monitoring of the complementary cardiac medicine in those people should be received more attention.

PURPOSE

There are many management lines for a cardio-geriatric condition in Traditional Persian Medicine (TPM). Accordingly, this paper aimed to deal with those medicaments as well as evidence-based clinical aspects and phytochemistry.

METHODS

By searching through main pharmaceutical manuscripts of Persian medicine during 10th-18th centuries (A.D.), concurrently, natural medicines for geriatrics and remedies for cardiovascular ailments were derived. On the other side, related phytochemical and pharmacological aspects of those remedies were highlighted.

RESULTS

In all, 38 cardiovascular and 34 geriatric medicaments were found in those manuscripts. Antihyperlipidemic and cholesterol lowering activities of those medicines were the most reported activities in current medicine. However, other pharmacological reports were related to hypotensive, coagulant, cardio-protective and cardiotonic activities. In regard of the chemical composition, medicaments were mainly of polyphenols and flavonoids and also most of the employed extracts and fractions were yielded from polar or semi-polar solvents.

CONCLUSION

With reference to these findings, flavonoid-rich medicaments from Persian medicine may be selected as considerable herbs for geriatrics with cardiovascular ailments.

The Hidden History of a Famous Drug: Tracing the Medical and Public Acculturation of Peruvian Bark in Early Modern Western Europe (c. 1650-1720)

The history of the introduction of exotic therapeutic drugs in early modern Europe is usually rife with legend and obscurity and Peruvian bark is a case in point. The famous antimalarial drug entered the European medical market around 1640, yet it took decades before the bark was firmly established in pharmaceutical practice. This article argues that the history of Peruvian bark can only be understood as the interplay of its trajectories in science, commerce, and society. Modern research has mostly focused on the first of these, largely due to the abundance of medico-historical data. While appreciating these findings, this article proposes to integrate the medical trajectory in a richer narrative, by drawing particular attention to the acculturation of the bark in commerce and society. Although the evidence we have for these two trajectories is still sketchy and disproportionate, it can nevertheless help us to make sense of sources that have not yet been an obvious focus of research. Starting from an apparently isolated occurrence of the drug in a letter, this article focuses on Paris as the location where medical and public appreciation of the bark took shape, by exploring several contexts of knowledge circulation and medical practice there. These contexts provide a new window on the early circulation of knowledge of the bark, at a time when its eventual acceptance was by no means certain.

Back to the roots: A quantitative survey of herbal drugs in Dioscorides' De Materia Medica (ex Matthioli, 1568)

BACKGROUND

De Materia Medica written by Pedanios Dioscorides (1 century CE) has shaped European and Mediterranean herbal medicine to a large extent. Despite its fundamental importance for modern medico-botanical traditions the content of this work has never been systematically assessed.

PURPOSE

We present a quantitative survey of the botanical drugs described in De Materia Medica (ex Matthioli, 1568) and identify overall therapeutic, diachronic and botanical patterns. The extracted data may serve as a baseline and help to better contextualize research on herbal drugs and phytotherapy.

METHODS

Therapeutic uses of herbal drugs were extracted through line-by-line reading of a digitized version of the treatise. For each plant usage mentioned in the text we recorded (I) the chapter number, (II) the putative botanical identity, (III) the plant part, (IV) the symptoms or disease, (V) the mode of administration, (VI) our biomedical interpretation of the ancient ailment or disease description as well as (VII) the organ- and symptom-defined category under which the use was filed.

SECTIONS

An introduction to Dioscorides' De Materia Medica and Matthioli's Renaissance commentary is followed by a description of the employed methodology. The results and discussion section introduces the generated database comprising 5314 unique therapeutic uses of 536 plant taxa and 924 herbal drugs. Separate subsections address salient patterns such as the frequent recommendation of Fabaceae seeds for dermatology, Apiaceae seeds as antidotes and Apiaceae exudates for neurology and psychosomatic disorders as well as the heavy reliance on subterranean parts as drugs.

CONCLUSIONS

The therapeutic knowledge described in De Materia Medica (ex Matthioli, 1568) offers unique insights into classical Mediterranean epidemiology and herbal medicine. Drugs that lost importance over time as well as remedies used for diseases now controlled by preventive medicine and industrially produced drugs may be interesting starting points for research on herbal medicine and drug discovery. Apart from promoting future data mining, the study may also help to prove the tradition of use, which is required for the regulatory approval of certain herbal products.

Bio-politics and the promotion of traditional herbal medicine in Vietnam

It is often suggested that, in the past 50 years, Vietnam has experienced a traditional medicine ‘revival’ that can be traced back to late President Ho Chi Minh's 1955 appeal ‘to study means of uniting the effects of oriental remedies with those of Europe’. In this article, I demonstrate how traditional herbal medicine came to be recruited as an important component of national efforts to promote the public health of urban and rural populations in Vietnam. Importantly, this has entailed a rejection of a colonial biopolitics that sought to marginalize ‘quackery’ in favour of a postcolonial bio-politics that aims to promote the ‘appropriate’ use of traditional herbal medicines. While the Vietnamese case bears many parallels to other countries in this respect, notably China, Vietnam's ancient history of medicine, postcolonial isolation and extensive health delivery network have resulted in a unique strategy that encourages rural populations to become self-sufficient in the herbal treatment of their most common illnesses.

Chinese vegetative materia medica in a venereological treatise by Jean Astruc from 1740

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE

Historical medical sources can be still queried for forgotten cures and remedies. Traditional Chinese medicine has dealt with lues venerea (syphilis) since the Five Dynasties period (10th century). Chinese indigenous materia medica and remedies recorded, studied or imported by the Europeans can reveal known or quite unknown medicinal plants. The studied Jean Astruc's work is a published ethnopharmacological survey carried out in Beijing in the 1730s and it deserves a modern interpretation.

AIM OF THE STUDY

This is the first proposal to identify historical Chinese medicinal plants listed in a scarcely known medical treatise De Morbis venereis… ('On venereal diseases…') by Jean Astruc from 1740. I searched for the current uses and position of the taxonomically identified herbal stock in both traditional Chinese and official medical knowledge, with special attention to syphilis.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

Chinese names of drugs and their botanical identities (originally expressed by means of pre-Linnaean polynomials, and now interpreted as accepted binomials) were independently cross-checked with younger till most recent taxonomical and ethnopharmacological sources. Plants and drugs identified this way were queried for their modern applications in traditional Chinese and official medicine with special attention to sexually transmitted diseases (STD) and other uses which are similar to the 18th-century understanding of venereology.

RESULTS

For 24 items of medicinal stock, 34 medicinal plants have been identified or suspected: Acacia catechu, Achyranthes bidentata, Akebia quinata, Angelica dahurica, A. sinensis, Aquilaria sinensis, Aralia cordata, Aristolochia fangchi, Chaenomeles sinensis, Ch. speciosa, Clematis vitalba, Coix lacryma-jobi, Commiphora myrrha, Cydonia oblonga, Daemonorops draco, D. jenkinsiana, Dictamnus dasycarpus, Dryobalanops sumatrensis, Forsythia suspensa, Glycyrrhiza uralensis, Lonicera confusa, L. hypoglauca, L. japonica, Ligusticum striatum (=L. chuanxiong), Piper kadsura, Pterocarpus officinalis, Saposhnikovia divaricata, Sassafras tzumu, Smilax china, S. glabra, Stephania tetrandra, Styphnolobium japonicum, Trichosanthes japonica, T. kirilowii; China wax is also mentioned. Out of them, only Lonicera japonica is being used in China in late syphilis, Achyranthes bidentata in gonorrhoea, and Dictamnus dasycarpus in gynaecological problems. In the Astruc's study, 3 medicinal plant species and 5 further plant genera are correctly determined; other plant parts were misidentified.

CONCLUSIONS

Antisyphilitic actions ascribed to the Chinese medical formulas and their constituents studied by Astruc, seem to have come from Hg or As compounds rather than from vegetative materia medica. The formulas contained only one species still known in TCM as a remedy for syphilis.

Unlicensed to Prescribe Herbs: A Chinese Healer - Médico Chino - in Puerto Rico, 1851-1853

In Puerto Rico and Cuba, the phrase "can't be saved even by the Chinese physician" ("no lo salva ni el médico chino") indicates a person with an incurable disease. The documents at the Archivo General de Puerto Rico include three requests for a medical license from a Chinese immigrant, Juan de Dios Sian (Lin Hua Cheng). Despite lacking legal credentials, he used herbal therapies to treat chronically ill persons in Ponce, San Juan and Mayaguez from 1851 to 1853. Before arriving in Ponce he had spent four years in Cuba, where he is again found by 1865. Sian's petitions show that Puerto Rico, like Cuba, experienced a widely known "médico chino." The anecdote reminds us of important issues in our medical and social history: Asiatic immigration (earlier, larger and more diverse than usually considered), access to care (and its limitations), and the long history of herbal medicine in Oriental and Western cultures. Elements of this story, such as the eagerness for new treatments among patients who have derived no benefit from standard therapy, the ethics of medical licensing, the impotence of licensing agencies and the toleration of authorities regarding an unorthodox but popular healer, exemplify dilemmas that accompany medical practice at all times.

[The complex travel of cinchona barks between Peru and Québec Hôtel-Dieu, in the middle of the eighteenth century]

Duplessis sisters, who were religious nuns in Hôtel-Dieu (Quebec hospital), were exchanging letters with a French apothecary from Dieppe in Normandy, named Jacques-Tranquilain Féret. They asked him to send them in Quebec the drugs and medicines their apothecary needed. Amongst these drugs were cinchona barks that came from Callao in Peru by boat, passed Cape Horn and then sailed to Cadiz, the great Spanish port. Then they embarked to Rouen, which was the French port for goods coming from overseas. The goods from Peru had then to be transported on little fishing boats to Dieppe, where Féret received the barks. The apothecary sent these drugs to Quebec by boats sailing either from Rouen or from La Rochelle. So these Peruvian drugs had to cross two times the Ocean before accessing to North America.