Professional Documents
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B 160 Medicines
B 160 Medicines
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
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
Cannabis sativa and C. indica
Cannabis sativa and C. indica
Cannabis sativa x indica hybrid
High tech Cannabis growing
in the Netherlands
UK Police Bust of High-Tech Growth
World Cannabis Laws - 2011