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    Ancient cultures around the world have long used medicinal plants for healthcare. Archaeological evidence shows medicinal plant use in India as early as 3500 BCE and trade of medicinal plants between Egypt and Babylon by 2250 BCE. Knowledge of medicinal plants was developed through oral tradition and experimentation over generations. Important early written records of medicinal plant use include Dioscorides' 1st century AD Greek herbals and the 1597 English Herbal by John Gerard. Many modern medicines are still derived from plants first used traditionally, such as foxglove for heart conditions and quinine from cinchona bark for malaria. Arrow poisons from plants like monkshood and curare vines were also early sources of medically

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    Ancient cultures around the world have long used medicinal plants for healthcare. Archaeological evidence shows medicinal plant use in India as early as 3500 BCE and trade of medicinal plants between Egypt and Babylon by 2250 BCE. Knowledge of medicinal plants was developed through oral tradition and experimentation over generations. Important early written records of medicinal plant use include Dioscorides' 1st century AD Greek herbals and the 1597 English Herbal by John Gerard. Many modern medicines are still derived from plants first used traditionally, such as foxglove for heart conditions and quinine from cinchona bark for malaria. Arrow poisons from plants like monkshood and curare vines were also early sources of medically

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    50 views75 pages

    B 160 Medicines

    Uploaded by

    cakeforu
    Ancient cultures around the world have long used medicinal plants for healthcare. Archaeological evidence shows medicinal plant use in India as early as 3500 BCE and trade of medicinal plants between Egypt and Babylon by 2250 BCE. Knowledge of medicinal plants was developed through oral tradition and experimentation over generations. Important early written records of medicinal plant use include Dioscorides' 1st century AD Greek herbals and the 1597 English Herbal by John Gerard. Many modern medicines are still derived from plants first used traditionally, such as foxglove for heart conditions and quinine from cinchona bark for malaria. Arrow poisons from plants like monkshood and curare vines were also early sources of medically

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
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    of 75

    Medicinal Plants

    Ancient archaeological records of


    medicinal plants
    3500 BCE - India had an extensive pharmacopoeia.
    Much of that knowledge is still used as part of the
    Ayurveda medical system
    2250 BCE – Egypt and Babylon were trading
    medicinal plants
    900 BCE - Archaeological records demonstrate the
    use of medicinal and psychoactive plants in the
    New World
    330 BCE - One of the Theophrastus’s students,
    Alexander the Great, sent medicinal plants from
    Asia back to Greece for cultivation
    2000 YA - The first written Chinese records
    although use is probably as ancient as India’s
    Use of Medicinal Plants
    • Use of medicinal plants developed from
    informal experimentation and based on a
    general familiarity with medicinal plants.
    This knowledge was amassed via
    experimentation over many generations and
    was handed down orally from person to
    person – often woman to woman in
    traditional cultures.
    Theophrastus
    370-285 BCE
    History of Herbals
    • Dioscorides, in the 1st Century AD, was a Greek physician
    who described the medicinal properties of plants - he
    described the use of 500 species of plants in his book De
    Materia Medica
    • The first herbal written in the Anglo-Saxon world was an 11th
    Century book known as the Herbarium of Apuleius Platonicus
    • The first herbal to break from Dioscorides and print
    descriptions of local flora, with accurate drawings of the
    plants was by Leonhart Fuchs, his extremely well illustrated
    herbal De Historia Stirpium was published in 1543
    Page from “Vienna Dioscorides”
    Arabic – 6th Century
    Page from Arabic edition of
    Dioscorides herbal 1334
    Title page from Fuchs
    herbal –1543
    Page from Fuchs Herbal 1543

    Papaver or Poppy
    More from Fuchs Herbal 1543

    Nicotiana - Tobacco
    English Herbals
    • The earliest printed English herbal was anonymous
    volume from 1525 published by Richard Banckes
    • In 1526, Peter Treversi published an English translation of
    a French herbal
    • In 1538, William Turner published an herbal entitled
    Libelluls de re Herbaria Novus
    • In 1551, Henry F. Lyte published an English translation of
    Rembert Dodoen’s herbal Stirpium Historiae Pemptades
    Sex which was valued because of its all inclusive treatment
    of many plants and excellent plates illustrating flowers
    Best English Herbals
    • In 1597, John Gerard published his outstanding book The
    Herball, Or Generall Historie of Plantes - it is a huge
    volume of 1392 pages and 2200 woodcut illustrations of
    plants - it was widely used by physicians and became
    widely quoted and referenced - the book has remained in
    print for 400 years
    • The last major herbal published in English was John Ray’s
    herbal, published in 1688 - it is also a major taxonomic
    work and Ray was the first person to divide the flowering
    plants into two main groups - the dicots and monocots
    Cover of
    Gerard’s
    Herbal –
    1597
    Page from Gerard’s Herbal - 1597
    Title Page of John Ray’s
    Herbal - 1688
    Page from John Ray’s Herbal - 1688
    Ginseng root – Panax
    pseudoginseng
    Foxglove –
    Digitalis purpurea

    • Foxglove may be
    useful as a way to
    cure people of
    “grosse and slimie
    flegme and
    naughtie humors” –
    from Gerard’s
    Herbal - 1597
    William Withering
    - holding a foxglove
    Withering’s work on Foxglove
    • Began experiments with foxglove in 1775 -
    Withering had heard about an old family cure for
    dropsy
    • Reported his findings in a paper published in
    1785, “An Account of the Foxglove and Some of
    its Medical Uses”
    • Powdered foxglove leaf is still prescribed in
    tablets or capsules to treat congestive heart failure
    • The somewhat crude powdered drug is called
    Digitalis after the plant
    • Foxglove produces more than 30 different cardiac
    glycosides - two in particular - Digoxin and
    Digitoxin are produced from foxglove and
    prescribed to heart patients around the world today
    Foxglove - Digitalis purpurea
    Willow Bark – inspiration for Aspirin
    Urgent need to study medicinal plants

    The utility of plants in current therapy


    There has been a rush to develop synthetic
    medicines based on plant medicines, but
    often the synthetic medicines don’t work
    as well as the original plant medicines.
    For example – quinine and malaria
    Efficacy of Quinine
    • Quinine is traditional and effective preventative of
    malaria
    • Synthetic preventatives such as chloroquine,
    maloprim, and fansidar have largely replaced the
    use of quinine
    • Many strains of Plasmodium have developed
    resistances to the synthetics and the synthetics are
    more toxic. It is recommended that people do not
    take fansidar for more than 3 months due to
    potential liver damage.
    Malaria Cycle
    Anopheles freeborni mosquito – intermediate
    host and vector for Plasmodium sp.
    Historical distribution of Malaria
    Red areas show countries with malaria today
    One of the sources of Quinine –
    Cinchona succirubra
    Cinchona pubescens
    Timeline of Quinine Use
    • 1633, a Jesuit priest named Father Calancha described how
    to use quinine bark to cure fevers
    • 1645 Father Bartolome Tafur took some bark to Rome and
    many of the clergy used it
    • Cardinal John de Lugo wrote a pamphlet to be distributed
    with the bark - use of the bark became so widespread that
    in the papal conclave of 1655 no one died of malaria
    • 1654 – English aware of use of quinine bark
    • 1735, a French botanist named Joseph de Jussieu
    journeyed to South America and found and described the
    tree that is the source of the bark - he sent samples to
    Sweden where in 1739, Carl Linneaus named the tree
    genus Cinchona
    Timeline of Quinine Use
    • 20 to 40 species of Cinchona - the species are very
    hard to tell apart and the species will hybridize, so
    the exact number of species is unknown – mostly
    understorey trees
    • 1820 the French chemists Joseph Pelletier and
    Joseph Caventou isolated the alkaloid quinine from
    the bark and identified it was the active ingredient
    in Peruvian bark
    • 1861, an Australian named Charles Ledger obtained
    seeds from an Aymara Indian named Manuel Incra
    • by 1930, the Dutch orchards in Java produced 22
    million pounds of quinine, 97% of the world’s
    market
    Charles Ledger – 1818-1906
    Chemical structure of quinine
    Properties of Quinine
    • Quinine itself is an odorless white powder with an
    extremely bitter taste
    • It can be used to treat cardiac arrhythmias as well
    as malaria - it is also used as a flavoring agent
    • Quinine prevents malaria by suppressing
    reproduction of the Plasmodium protozoan and
    also helps prevent some of the fevers and pain
    associated with malaria
    Quinine fluoresces under UV light
    Raymond Fosberg in the
    field in 1948
    Cinchona bark drying in the sun in
    Ecuador, 1944
    Arrow Poisons
    Documented use of arrow poisons
    around the world
    Monkshood – Aconitum ferox –
    source of Acontine
    Monkshood –
    Aconitum ferox in the wild
    Uses of Aconitum
    • In Europe the plant has been used as a liniment or tincture in
    the treatment of neuralgia, sciatica, and rheumatism, and
    taken internally to alleviate fevers.
    • In India and China the plant is still used in treatment. In the
    raw state, tubers are applied to the skin as a surface
    anaesthetic and to treat lumbar and leg pains, neuralgia and
    rheumatoid arthritis. After much processing it is used for
    cardiotonic and diuretic properties.
    • Acontine is an alkaloid derived from monkshood - used in
    heart medicines, common cough medicines, and used in fly
    control in Europe since 1240
    First Ethnobotanical Chemical
    Isolation - Strychine
    • 1805 – Leschenault describes the preparation of
    the Javanese dart poison Upas Tieute.
    • 1809 – Magendie and Delile publish accounts of
    experiments on mechanism of action of the
    poison.
    • 1819 – Pelletier and Caventou isolate strychine
    from other sources. Magendie uses strychine in
    clinical medicine.
    • 1824 – Pelletier and Caventou isolate strychine
    from upas tieute
    • 1963 – total synthesis of strychine by Woodward
    et al.
    Strychnos nux-vomica - source of
    Strychine
    Strychnos nux-vomica
    leaves and seeds
    Strychnos
    • Interestingly there are about 200 species in the
    genus Strychnos but only 6 actually contain
    strychine – in particular S. nux-vomica, S. ignatii
    (St. Ignatius’ bean), S. colubrina (snake wood)
    and S. guianensis. Strychine is commonly used
    in rat poison. It has been used to stimulate
    circulation, but that cannot be recommended
    because it frequently poisons the patient.
    Curares
    Calabash curare from Strychnos
    guianensis – carried in gourd

    Crescentia cujete – source


    of calabash gourd
    Tube Curares – made from members of
    Chondrodendron and other moonseeds -
    Menispermaceae

    Chondrodendron tomentosum leaves and vine


    Tube and Calabash Curares
    • The bamboo tube curare yielded
    tubocurarine and the calabash gourd curare
    yielded toxiferine - both are useful as an
    anaesthetic in open-heart surgery - these are
    muscle relaxants which kill by relaxing
    muscles which allow breathing
    Bark being scraped to start
    preparation of curare
    Liquid dripped through shavings to
    extract Curare
    Curare added to arrow/dart tips

    Waorani man
    Toxicities of several arrow poisons
    Anti-tumor medicines from
    Arrow Poisons?
    • There is a possibility that plants producing arrow
    poisons may also have value in producing anti-
    tumor medicines. Spjut and Perdue (1976)
    surveyed 76 species from 63 genera in 29 families
    and found that 46 of the species had been screened
    for anti-tumor activity. Of these 52% of the
    species and 75% of the genera had been found to
    have anti-tumor activity. This high anti-tumor
    activity probably comes from the fact that arrow
    poison plants almost all produce cardenolide
    glycosides that are cytotoxic (kill cells).
    Herbal Medicines Today
    • Though many modern cultures make extensive use
    of herbal remedies, most notably in India and
    China, much of Western medicine has moved
    away from herbal medicines. In Great Britain
    there is still a tradition of homeopathic doctors
    and herbal Culpeper Shops. Homeopathy is based
    on using minute quantities of substances that in
    massive doses produce effects similar to those of
    the disease being treated.
    Nicholas Culpeper
    1616-1654
    Culpeper’s Influence on
    Homeopathy
    Grave’s patent medicine – a
    Laudanum product
    Medicines from Plants
    • About 25% of the prescription drugs used in the
    western world have active ingredients that are derived
    from plants – often the only way to acquire these
    drugs is through growing and harvesting the plants
    because synthetic substitutes are not as effective.
    • 89 plant derived drugs that are currently used in
    western medicine as prescription medicines were
    discovered by studying folk knowledge of the plant’s
    properties
    Strychnos toxifera
    – source of D-tubocurarine
    Mexican yam – Dioscorea villosa
    Source of cortisone
    Indian snakeroot – Rauwolfia
    serpentina –Source of reserpine
    Madagascar periwinkle Catharanthus
    roseus –Source of vincristine
    White Hellebore – Veratrum album
    Source of hypotensive alkaloids
    Medicinal Plants in
    the Amazonian Basin
    • 3 million square miles in size, supports the
    world’s largest rainforest with an estimated
    80,000 species of plants, about 15% of the
    world’s species
    • The northwest section of the Colombian
    Amazon is home to 70,000 Indians in 50
    ethnic groups that speak many languages
    from 12 linguistic families. They have been
    recorded to use medicines made from almost
    1600 plants from 596 genera in 145 families
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