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Botanical view of the use of plants in medieval medicine in the Eastern Mediterranean according to the Cairo Genizah
Abstract
This article presents the medicinal plants that were used by the inhabitants of the medieval Eastern Mediterranean (mainly tenth to thirteenth centuries AD) and analyzes their geographical/phyto-botanical origin and their frequency of use at the medieval time. It also discusses various issues such as their historical trade and the continuation of their use in present-day Middle Eastern traditional medicine.
The Cairo Genizah is an historical source containing about 250,000 documents, found in a semi-archeological context (synagogue and graves). Since Cairo became the capital and consequently the economic and administrative center of the Muslim empire, the Jewish community had close connections with the Jewish communities of the Middle East, North Africa, Southern Europe, Sicily and India. Therefore, these highly valued documents record every aspect of life and reflect on the whole Mediterranean region and beyond.
The inventory of the practical materia medica was reconstructed thanks to hundreds of documents such as prescriptions, list of drugs, and medical letters. It consists of 278 drugs, 223 of which are of plant origin. Asian medicinal plants became highly used in medieval Mediterranean medicine; the vast majority of them are still sold in Middle Eastern markets, although not with the same importance. It is important to note that some of them are sold today mainly for their other uses as spices, perfumes, incense, etc.
... Orta Çağ döneminde Doğu Akdeniz, Azerbaycan ve Şam'da Doronicum türlerinin kullanımı bulunmaktadır. Doğu Akdeniz'de D. scorpioides (yöresel isim=Leopard'sbane, Panther strangler) türünün köklerinin göz rahatsızlıkları ve cinsel arzuyu baskılayıcı olarak kullanıldığı kayıtlıdır [104]. Azerbaycan'da ise D. macrophyllum türünün kökleri tonik olarak kullanılmıştır. ...
Asteraceae familyası 485’i endemik olmak üzere içerdiği 1311 tür ile ülkemiz florasında bulunan tür sayısı bakımından en zengin familyadır. Familyanın Senecioneae tribusunda yer alan Doronicum L. cinsi son verilere göre ülkemizde 9 tür ve 1 alt tür ile temsil edilmekte olup endemizm oranı %40’tır. Ülkemizde bulunan türlerin genellikle yayılış alanları dar olup çoğunlukla Kuzey ve Doğu Anadolu dağlarının nemli bölgelerinde yetişmektedirler. Cins üzerinde en son kapsamlı çalışmalar 2000’li yılların başında gerçekleştirilmiş olup türler üzerinde yapılan bazı morfolojik ve moleküler çalışmalarla cinsin sistematiği aydınlatılmaya çalışılmıştır. Elde edilen veriler sonucunda Türkiyede’de yer alan bazı türler sinonim seviyesine düşürülmüştür. Avrupa’da Doronicum türlerinden halk arasında kalp hastalıkların, epilepsi, malarya, sindirim sistemi hastalıkları ve akrep-yılan zehirlenmeleri gibi çeşitli hastalıkların tedavisinde yararlanılmaktadır. Ülkemizde D. orientale (Acımık, Baylıkotu, Kaplanotu, Sarı papatya, Sarı çiçek) türünün taze kökleri kısırlık tedavisinde kullanılırken, topraküstü kısımlarının dekoksiyonu dahilen diüretik olarak kullanılmaktadır. Ayrıca büyük ve gösterişli çiçeklerinden dolayı Avrupa’da süs bitkisi olarak yetiştirilmektedir. Doronicum türlerinin topraküstü kısımları ve kök ekstrelerinin pirolizidin alkaloidleri, flavonoitler, kumarinler, terpenler, benzofuranlar (tremeton türevleri) gibi bileşikler içerdiği birçok çalışma ile gösterilmiştir. Uçucu yağın içeriğinde ise seskiterpen ve monoterpene bileşikler öne çıkmaktadır. Günümüze kadar türler üzerinde antienflamatuar, antioksidan, antimikrobiyal, antitümoral, hepatoprotektif, üreaz inhibitör, α-amilaz inhibitör, α-glukozidaz inhibitor ve kolinesteraz inhibitör aktivite çalışmaları gerçekleştirilmiştir. Her ne kadar zehirli bitkiler olarak bilinseler de Doronicum türlerinin kanıtlanmış biyolojik aktiviteleri ve içerdikleri biyoaktif bileşikler ile bitkisel ilaç olarak kullanılabilecek aday molekülleri içerdikleri düşünülmektedir. Türler üzerinde gerçekleştirilecek ileri çalışmalar ile özellikle Alzheimer hastalığı ve çeşitli kanser türleri için tedaviyi destekleyecek yeni bileşiklerin keşfedilebileceği ümit edilmektedir.
... The comparison to adjacent ancient civilizations (in time and space) enables us to reconstruct the suggested list of BMP's. Examination of our list shows that all the plants in our suggested list are in continuous medicinal use in the Middle East down generations [138][139] and are used in the Holy Land today [138][139][140][141]. ...
Background:
Previous lists number from 55 to 176 plant species as "Biblical Medicinal Plants." Modern studies attest that many names on these lists are no longer valid. This situation arose due to old mistranslations and/or mistakes in botanical identification. Many previously recognized Biblical plants are in no way related to the flora of the Bible lands. Accordingly, the list needs revision.
Methods:
We re-examine the list of possible medicinal plants in the Bible based on new studies in Hebrew Biblical philology and etymology, new studies on the Egyptian and Mesopotamian medicinal use of plants, on ethnobotany and on archaeobotany.
Results:
In our survey, we suggest reducing this list to 45 plant species. Our contribution comprises 20 "newly" suggested Biblical Medicinal Plants. Only five species are mentioned directly as medicinal plants in the Bible: Fig (Ficus carica), Nard (Nardostachys jatamansi), Hyssop (Origanum syriacum), balm of Gilead (Commiphora gileadensis) and Mandrake (Mandragora officinarum). No fewer than 18 medicinal plants are mentioned in old Jewish post-Biblical sources, in addition to those in the Bible. Most of these plants (15) are known also in Egypt and Mesopotamia while three are from Egypt only. Seven of our suggested species are not mentioned in the Bible or in the Jewish post-Biblical literature but were recorded as medicinal plants from Egypt, as well as from Mesopotamia. It is quite logical to assume that they can be included as Biblical Medicinal Plants.
Conclusions:
All our suggested Biblical Medicinal Plants are known as such in Ancient Egypt and/or Mesopotamia also. Examination of our list shows that all these plants have been in continuous medicinal use in the Middle East down the generations, as well as being used in the Holy Land today. Precisely in King Solomon's words, "That which has been is what will be, that which is done is what will be done. And there is nothing new under the sun" (Ecclesiastes 1:9).
... Later in the 12th century AD, a book named Treatise of the Dietetic Properties of the Lemon, in which all the qualities of this fruit are detailed, was written in Egypt by Ibn Jamiya, the physician to Sultan Saladin (Arias and Ram on-Laca, 2005). References from Medieval Cairo Genizah (Lev, 2015) and 13th century AD texts from Quseir ( Fig. 1A; Guo, 2004), indicate that lemons were shipped from India to Egypt for medical purposes. Yet, according to van der Veen (2011), there is confusion in references between the lime and the lemon, and therefore, it is not certain which of the two fruit types was imported. ...
Today, citrus orchards are a major component of the Mediterranean landscape and one of the most important cultivated fruits in the region; however, citrus is not native to the Mediterranean Basin, but originated in Southeast Asia. Here, the route of the spread and diversification of citrus is traced through the use of reliable historical information (ancient texts, art, and artifacts such as wall paintings and coins) and archaeobotanical remains such as fossil pollen grains, charcoals, seeds, and other fruit remains. These botanical remains are evaluated for their reliability (in terms of identification, archaeological context, and dating) and possible interpretations. Citrus medica (citron) was the first citrus to spread west, apparently through Persia and the Southern Levant (remains were found in a Persian royal garden near Jerusalem dated to the fifth and fourth centuries BC) and then to the western Mediterranean (early Roman period, ’third and second centuries BC). In the latter region, seeds and pollen remains of citron were found in gardens owned by the affluent in the Vesuvius area and Rome. The earliest lemon (C. limon) botanical remains were found in the Forum Romanum (Rome) and are dated to the late first century BC/early first century AD. It seems, therefore, that lemon was the second citrus species introduced to the Mediterranean. The contexts of the botanical remains, in relation to elite gardens, show that in antiquity, both citrus and lemon were products representing high social status. Sour orange (C. aurantium), lime (C. aurantifolia), and pummelo (C. maxima) did not reach the Mediterranean until the 10th century AD, after the Islamic conquest. Sweet orange (C. sinesis) was introduced during the second half of the 15th century AD, probably via the trade route established by the Genoese, and later (16th century AD) by the Portuguese. The mandarin (C. reticulata) reached the Mediterranean only in the early 19th century. While citron and lemon arrived in the Mediterranean as elite products, all other citrus fruit most probably spread for economic reasons. © 2017 American Society for Horticultural Science. All rights reserved.
Rhus coriaria, also known as sumac, have been traditionally used in many countries as spice, condiment, dying agent and medicinal herb. The chemical composition of essential oils and the volatile emissions from different organs of this species collected in Sicily (Italy) were analyzed by GC–FID and GC–MS. Monoterpene and sesquiterpene hydrocarbons were the most abundant class in the volatile emissions with β-caryophyllene and α-pinene were the main constituents in the majority of the examined samples. The EO composition was characterized by high amount of monoterpene and sesquiterpene hydrocarbons together with diterpenes. The main compounds in the EO obtained from the leaves and both stages of fruit maturation were cembrene and β-caryophyllene, while α-pinene and tridecanoic acid were the key compounds in the flower EO. All the data were submitted to multivariate statistical analysis showing many differences among the different plant parts and their ontogenetic stages. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Medieval History of the Duda’im Melon (
Cucumis melo
, Cucurbitaceae). Melons, Cucumis melo, are a highly polymorphic species for fruit characteristics. The melons that are the most valued are the ones that turn sweet when ripe, including the muskmelons, cantaloupes, and casabas. Others, including the elongate adzhur, conomon, and snake melons, are consumed when immature, like cucumbers. The duda’im melons, Cucumis melo Duda’im Group, are special, as their small, spherical, thin-fleshed, insipid but beautifully maroon, dark-orange, or brown-and-yellow striped ripe fruits are valued for ornament and especially for their lush fragrance. The distinctive properties of duda’im melons are matched with special names given to them in several languages and geographical areas, which have made possible tracing of the history of these melons to mid-9th century Persia. From that region, duda’im melons diffused westward, likely facilitated by Islamic conquests, reaching North Africa and Andalusia in the 10th century.
This article presents a plethora of fragments from the medical notebooks found in the Cairo Genizah that comprise a unique source of historical data for scholarly study and for a better understanding of the ways in which medieval medical knowledge in Egypt was transferred from theory to practice and vice versa. These documents provide the most direct evidence we have for preferred practical medical recipes because they record the choices of medical practitioners in medieval Cairo. Since the language most commonly used in them was Judaeo-Arabic, they were evidently written by Jews. The medical genre in the notebooks was primarily pharmacopoeic, consisting of apparently original recipes for the treatment of various diseases. There are also a few notebooks on materia medica. The subject matter of the Genizah medical notebooks shows that they were mostly of an eclectic nature, i.e. the writers had probably learnt about these treatments and recipes from their teachers, applied them at the hospitals where they worked or copied them from the books they read. Foremost among the subjects dealt with were eye diseases, followed by skin diseases, coughs and colds, dentistry and oral hygiene, and gynaecological conditions. The writers of the Genizah notebooks apparently recorded the practical medical knowledge they wished to preserve for their future use as amateur physicians, students, traditional healers or professional practitioners.
Aim of the study:
Apart from empirically learned medicinal and pharmacological properties, the selection of medicinal plants is dependent on cognitive features, ecological factors and cultural history. In literate societies the transmission of medicinal plant knowledge through texts and, more recently, other media containing local as well as non-local knowledge has a more immediate and a more prolonged effect than oral transmission. Therefore, I try to visualize how field based studies in ethnobiology and especially medical ethnobotany and ethnopharmacology run the risk of repeating information and knowledge and illustrate the importance of differentiating and acknowledging the origin, transmission and rationale of plant use made by humans.
Materials and methods:
Reviewing literature dealing with the traditional parameters (e.g. hot/cold dichotomy, organoleptic properties, doctrine of signatures) influencing the selection and transmission of plant use in a juxtaposition to our recent finding of causal influence of text on local plant use. Discussing the passing down of knowledge by text as a special case of oblique/one-to-many knowledge transmission.
Results:
Historical texts on materia medica, popular books on plant use, clinical studies, and informants of ethnobotanical field studies generate a circle of information and knowledge, which progressively conditions the results of ethnobotanical field studies. While text reporting on phytotherapeutical trends may cause innovation through the introduction of "new" applications to local customs, persistently repeating well established folk remedies leads to the consolidation of such uses adding a conservative dimension to a local pharmacopoeia, which might not actually be there to that extent.
Conclusions:
Such a "shaping" of what might appear to be the results of a field investigation is clearly outside the ordinary principles of scientific enquiry. The traditional pillars of ethnobotanical field studies - that is, "input to drug discovery" and "conservation of cultural heritage" - are also incompatible with this process. Ethnobotancial field studies aimed at a contribution to natural products research and/or the conservation of cultural heritage, as well as those aimed at an assessment and validation of local pharmacopoeias should differentiate between local plant use and widespread as well as modern knowledge reported in popular textbooks and scientific literature.
In a recent survey, 106 local healers in Israel were interviewed concerning the use of Solanaceae as medicinal plants. The main findings reveal that: (a) only four species (Lycium europeaum, Solanum nigrum, Hyoscyamus aureus, Hyoscyamus albus) are extensively used today; (b) the use of some traditional plants has been almost abandoned (Datura spp., Mandragora autumnalis, Withania somnifera); (c) today all the plants are applied externally, they are rarely used as narcotics; (d) most use of these plants is local, only in a few cases is a uniform use found throughout the whole country, and in all ethnic groups; (e) the extensive distribution of modern, safe narcotics, sedatives and anaesthetics has reduced the use of the Solanaceae for these purposes.
The use of herbal medicine in Jordan is very common. In order to evaluate the knowledge and the attitudes of the herbalists and acquire the common and less common medicinal herbs sold by the Jordanian herbalists, more than 100 herbalists throughout the country were interviewed and data concerning herbs present in their shops, the herbalists' recommendations and other observations were collected. The present paper reports on the less common herbs and problems observed dealing with them.
An extensive ethnopharmacological survey was conducted among the most well known Arabic indigenous herbal practitioners in Israel, the Golan Heights and the West Bank in order to evaluate the potential of local plants used in treating different diseases and illnesses. Thirty-one indigenous practitioners' of Arabic traditional medicine ranging in age from 40 to 116 years, were interviewed using a previously prepared questionnaire. The current survey revealed that 129 plant species are still in use in Arabic traditional medicine for the treatments of various diseases. Among these plants, there are 40 species used for treating skin diseases, 27 species for treating kidney and urinary system, 26 species for treating diabetes, 23 species for treating digestive system including stomach and intestinal pain and inflammation, 22 species for treating liver diseases, 16 species for treating respiratory system and coughing, 13 species for treating forms of cancer and nine species for treating weight loss and cholesterol reduction. Additional findings and implications of this current survey including preparation methods and route of use are discussed in this report.
Traditional human communities have a wide knowledge of their environment. Collection of animals in estuarine and coastal areas are directly influenced by tidal cycles. The aim of this study is to evaluate the understanding of the tides associated with the lunar cycle held by people who gather crustaceans and molluscs in the State of Paraiba. The empirical knowledge of 20 crab gatherers and 30 mollusc gatherers was recorded through open interviews and structured questionnaires. The results showed that the gatherers have an accurate comprehension of tidal phenomenon based on their exploitation of natural resources, which perpetuates through generations.
The Holy Land has absorbed millions of immigrants in recent centuries: Jews from East and West, Druze, Circassians, Muslim and Christian Arabs. The land is unique and diverse in geographical location and ethnic groups, and also in its cultural characteristics, including traditional medicine and use of materia medica. However, these traditions have waned over the years. The young state of Israel adopted a "melting pot" approach to fashion Jews from all over the world into Israelis.
The traditional medicine and materia medica of different ethnic groups (Yemenite, Iranian, and Iraqi Jews) are reviewed in this paper, as well as the ethno-botanical survey (first conducted in the 1980s, covering Bedouins, Druze, Circassians, and Muslim and Christian Arabs), and the matching ethno-pharmacological survey (conducted in the late 1990s) covering the medicines sold in stores.
Present-day healers are usually not young and are believed to be the end of the chain of traditional medical knowledge. The ethno-diversity of Israel is becoming blurred; modernity prevails, and ethnic characteristics are fading. The characteristic lines of traditional medicine and materia medica have hardly lasted three generations.
A salient former dividing line between ethnic groups, namely their use of different medicinal substances, paradoxically becomes a bridge for conservative users of all groups and religions. Shops selling these substances have become centers for "nostalgia" and preserving the oriental heritage, traditional medicine, and medicinal substances!
The Labiatae family is known for the wealth of species with medicinal properties which have been used since early times (11). Many of these species are very common in the Mediterranean region.
Since the publication of Medical and Para-medical Manuscripts in the Cambridge Genizah Collections in 1994, 1 many more medical fragments have come to light. The present updated list includes the documents of the Arabic Series catalogued by Baker and Polliack, 2 the documents of the New Series catalogued by Shivtiel and Niessen 3 and other hitherto unpublished items. The intention is to make the information about medical documents from the Cairo Genizah available for scholars especially interested in the research of the history of medieval Arabic and Jewish medicine and pharmacology.
Acknowledgments: The authors thank Dr. Yaron Serry, Zefat Academic College, Safad, Israel, Prof. David Jacoby of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem for their useful comments and Sara Kemp and Betty Sigler Rozen for their editorial work. This article has reviewed the history of certain vegetables of the Cucurbitaceae family, and the change they underwent in their cultivation and distribution from antiquity to the Middle Ages. The watermelon, the melon, and the chate melon were undoubtedly well established in Levantine agriculture and diet from biblical times to the Classical period. Because of the Islamic conquests, new types of sweet and fleshy watermelons similar to our own were developed and distributed. The cucumber, a new vegetable, joined them and was added to the diet. These are but a few examples of many crops, medicinal substances and spices that were distributed and dispersed during the Middle Ages from South and East Asia to the Middle East, and thence to Europe.
Humans have borrowed plants' chemical 'recipes' for evolutionary survival for use in cuisine to combat foodborne microorganisms and to reduce food poisoning.
Hitherto, research on Arabic pharmacy and pharmacology has largely been based on the study of pharmacopoeias. While practical in nature, it is not clear to what extent the recipes in the pharmacopoeias were in fact used. The Cairo Genizah, the most famous and best preserved of the many depositories of documents written by medieval Jewish communities, provides us with a unique glimpse of practical medicine, by virtue of the prescriptions found there. These prescriptions reflect the medical reality that actually existed in the eastern Mediterranean basin in the 10th-13th centuries, and will be compared especially to pharmacopoeias known to have been used, or even deriving from, members of the Genizah community, such as Minha j al-dukka n, al-Dustūr al-bīma ristanī and the works of Maimonides. We will examine three prescriptions in depth, attempting to answer the following questions: Who wrote these prescriptions? Who made them up, i.e. prepared the medical recipes? What can be learnt from the prescriptions about medicine, public/community health, the use of materia medica? To what extent are these prescriptions original, i.e. how do they reflect the relationship between medieval medical theory and practice?
Perfumes have been known as utilizable but exclusive products since antiquity. Use of aromatic substances was first mentioned in archaic sources of the ancient world. The origin of such fragrant substances was mainly vegetable and animal. Throughout history, the use of subtle perfumes increased and some of the exotic materials became expensive and valuable commodities. They were the source of wealth for cultures and rulers. The contribution of the Arabs to the distribution of new crops, knowledge, industrial techniques and substances is a well-known phenomenon. In our article we intend to focus on the new perfumes that were distributed throughout the world thanks to the Arab conquests and the knowledge of their other uses, mainly medicinal, that was handed down along with the products themselves. About 20 common perfumes are known to have been used in the medieval world, though half of them were not mentioned in earlier sources.These phenomena will be dealt with and presented in a profile we built up for four perfumes: agarwood, camphor, musk and ambergris. The theoretical and practical uses of these perfumes that are presented in detail (based on various sources including traders’ documents, medical literature and practical Genizah fragments, dealing mainly with medicine) will serve as case studies for the understanding of new trends in the uses of perfumes after the Muslim conquest. Arab perfumes can be divided into three groups, according to their level of importance:
A. New perfumes, mainly from the vast region named “India”; most of which (such as camphor, ambergris and sandalwood and a compound made out of them known as nadd and ghāliya) were not known in the Middle East and the Mediterranean region until the Muslim conquests.
B. Perfumes that kept their popularity including: a variety of cinnamon, costus, spikenard, frankincense, saffron and rose.
C. Perfumes that lost their worth like balsam and myrrh.It seems that camphor was the best and most cherished perfume that substituted balsam. Like balsam, the importance of myrrh that was imported from Arabia and East Africa also declined and it seems that its substitute was musk. Transformations in perfume fashion were in fact only part of a wider revolution of the Arabic material culture which the Middle East, the Mediterranean region and even many European countries experienced due to the Arab conquests.
It is a well-known fact that the discovery of the sea route to India and the ensuing scarcity of spices and other Indian products on the markets of Alexandria and Damascus resulted in their prices rising steeply. Judging from Venetian sources, the change in the condition of the Levantine trade was considered catastrophic. On the other hand, some scholars have already drawn attention to the fact that pepper prices fell considerably on European markets in the period preceding the expedition of Vasco da Gama, and especially in the second quarter of the 15th century. It is probable, a priori , that this was caused by a downward trend of prices in the Near East. But other factors, such as the level of demand in European countries and the conditions of trade (communications with the Near East, direct or indirect trade), could also have influenced the course of spice prices in Europe. In order to explain the tremendous impact of the rise of spice prices at the beginning of the 16th century, I have suggested, in my Histoire des prix et des salaires , the probability of a fall of prices in the Near Eastern emporia in the pre-Vasco period. In a paper published a few years later I tried to substantiate this conjecture by additional materials and, further, by the supposition that it was accompanied by a great increase in the volume of the Levantine trade, and also a general price-decline in the Near East at the end of the Middle Ages.
The rise of the Abbasid dynasty created uniquely favorable economic conditions for exchange of all kinds. Muslim rulers took advantage of the presence within their empire of various kinds of specialised knowledge and techniques, and in so doing generated a revolution, spreading agricultural innovations and the use of new drugs, the vast majority of which were imported from South-East Asia, India, China and Zanzibar. The present article focuses on the examination of medicinal substances known in the Muslim world that were not mentioned by Classical writers. Some Muslim physicians, most of them Andalusian, who dealt with the identification and re-evaluation of medicinal substances - writers such as Ibn Juljul (10th century) and al-Idrīsī (12th century) - were aware of the absence of many drugs in the Greek medical literature and devoted works to the discussion of such missing drugs. Another important source for our knowledge is Ibn Rushd, also known as Averroes (12th ca.). In his major work on medicine, the al-kulliyyāt (Generalities), written between 1153 and 1169, he devoted a chapter to the drugs not mentioned by Galen. Ibn Rushd's list consists of fortyone drugs, twenty of which are identical to drugs that feature in Ibn Juljul's and al-Idrīsī's lists. This article presents the potential hidden in Ibn Rushd's list and assesses and reconstructs the list of drugs that were distributed by the Arabs. In future studies, we intend to gauge the extent of this phenomenon. The list is diverse, and consists of medicinal plants, perfumes, and spices, domesticated plants, drugs of animal and mineral origin, and compounds. These affected the pharmacology and diet of the pre-modern world for hundreds of years, and many of the simples are still in use in modern societies today.
The medical texts in the Genizah have been analyzed mainly as part of other subjects, like the various professional classes within the Jewish community in Old Cairo. Until now few have studied these documents in their own right, despite the fact that they offer valuable insights into the medieval economy of the Eastern Mediterranean and beyond. Focussing on saffron and myrobalan, this article offers a tentative investigation of the significance of medical drugs for the study of Mediterranean trade in the Middle Ages on the basis of practical medical fragments found mainly at the Taylor-Schechter collection in Cambridge.
The literature on medicine in medieval Muslim countries in general and in Egypt in particular is vast and detailed. Yet study and assessment of the practical aspects of medicine in the Mediterranean society of the Middle Ages requires examination of authentic, practical medical knowledge. At present this can be extracted mainly from the prescriptions found in the Cairo Genizah; these supply a different and valuable dimension. On the importance and the potential of research into the medical aspects of the Genizah documents, mainly prescriptions, Goitein wrote in 1971 that “these prescriptions have to be examined by experts in the history of medicine”.
Various structural possibilities for SinC and SinC2 (n = 1−7) neutral and anionic isomers were investigated using the second-order Møller−Plesset (MP2) approximation at the 6-311+G(d) level. The calculations predicted the existence of a number of previously unknown isomers (i.e., Si5C2 and Si6C2). We found that the basis set [6-31G(d)] with the MP2 approximation was too small to explain the photoelectron spectra of SinCm clusters reasonably. Our present results agree satisfactorily with the photoelectron spectroscopy. The strong C−C bond is no longer the dominant factor in the building-up principle of mixed Si6C2 neutral and anionic clusters. The calculated adiabatic electron affinities in their ground states showed that SinCm (n + m = 3, 6) clusters are more stable than any others in SinC and SinC2 (n = 1−7) species, being consistent with the observed TOF signal intensities. Their stability tends to decrease with the increase in the size of these clusters.
Sweet melons, Cucumis melo, are a widely grown and highly prized crop. While melons were familiar in antiquity, they were grown mostly for use of the young fruits, which are similar in appearance and taste to cucumbers, C. sativus. The time and place of emergence of sweet melons is obscure, but they are generally thought to have reached Europe from the east near the end of the 15th century. The objective of the present work was to determine where and when truly sweet melons were first developed.
Given their large size and sweetness, melons are often confounded with watermelons, Citrullus lanatus, so a list was prepared of the characteristics distinguishing between them. An extensive search of literature from the Roman and medieval periods was conducted and the findings were considered in their context against this list and particularly in regard to the use of the word 'melon' and of adjectives for sweetness and colour.
Medieval lexicographies and an illustrated Arabic translation of Dioscorides' herbal suggest that sweet melons were present in Central Asia in the mid-9th century. A travelogue description indicates the presence of sweet melons in Khorasan and Persia by the mid-10th century. Agricultural literature from Andalusia documents the growing of sweet melons, evidently casabas (Inodorous Group), there by the second half of the 11th century, which probably arrived from Central Asia as a consequence of Islamic conquest, trade and agricultural development. Climate and geopolitical boundaries were the likely causes of the delay in the spread of sweet melons into the rest of Europe.
Aim of the study:
To asses the scientific value of the practical medical fragments found in the Cairo Genizah (10th century), as a useful source for ethnopharmacological purposes (in exposing rare and usually inaccessible original medieval practical knowledge of medicinal substances to present-day researchers), and to reconstruct the practical drugs and their uses.
Materials and methods:
A methodology distinguishing between theoretical (about 1500 fragments) and practical medical knowledge (about 230 fragments) was created and used. The information regarding the practical medicinal substances was extracted from prescriptions (140), lists of drugs (70) and few letters of physicians.
Results:
The reconstructed lists of practical (278) and theoretical (414) drugs allow us to recognize and quantify the gap between them in medieval times (136).
Conclusions:
We propose that the data obtained from ancient prescriptions is comparable to ethnopharmacological surveys. The finding of plants such as myrobalan, saffron, licorice, spikenard and lentisk, all of which have scientifically proven anti-microbial/bacterial and anti-fungal activity, sheds a helpful light on the medical decision-making of the medieval practitioners in respect of the plants they applied as drugs. With the wealth of information meticulously assembled from these time capsules we expect to make a significant contribution to contemporary efforts at locating modern drugs in ancient roots and gauging their feasibility.
This study uses historical texts in order to obtain information on the natural products used in traditional medicines in European/Mediterranean therapeutics over the last two millennia. The information obtained may lead to new directions in the area of drug discovery, as recent research has demonstrated the continued promise of looking to natural products for bioactive compounds. Researchers have increasingly turned to traditional medicines to provide clues as to which natural products to investigate, but the oral traditions on which much of this medical knowledge rests are often unstable. Thus researchers have been prompted to use historical medical texts, as this study does, to find potential sources of new drugs.
This study uses twelve Mediterranean/European medical texts from the 5th century BC to the 19th century AD to compile a list of the most commonly used "simples"--or single action drugs substances--used in therapeutics in traditional European medicine. This list was then compared to present-day herbal pharmacopoeia as represented by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
This study finds that traditional European materia medica was based on a Dioscoridean tradition that lasted through the 19th century with remarkably little variation, but is significantly different from the present-day herbal pharmacopoeia according to the NIH.
The most prominent simples in the European/Mediterranean medical tradition can provide clues to further bioactive compounds that have not as of yet been fully exploited for their potential, but were clearly of great use in the past.
Examples are presented of plants with folkloric reputations that have recently afforded constituents with great potential for use as drugs or pharmaceutical excipients. Described are the results of laboratory investigations at this institution on the biologically active compounds of four plants with reputed medicinal properties and of six sweet plants used by local populations in various regions of the world. It is concluded that folklore information should be considered seriously in programs designed to yield prototype, biologically active molecules from plant sources.
The mass screening of plants in the search for new drugs is vastly expensive and inefficient. It would be cheaper and perhaps more productive to re-examine plant remedies described in ancient and mediaeval texts.
Recent years have witnessed a renewed interest in plants as pharmaceuticals in the Western world. This interest is channeled into the discovery of new biologically-active molecules by the pharmaceutical industry and into the adoption of crude extracts of plants for self-medication by the general public. In both of these areas some attention is being paid to the investigation and use of ethnopharmacology, the traditional use of plants for medicinal purposes by particular cultural groups. Ethnopharmacologic leads have resulted in the introduction of new single molecule drugs but have a greater role to play if crude extracts are accepted for clinical use in the West. The problems confronting such usage are discussed. Considerable benefits for developing countries are possible when the local medicinal plants are subjected to scientific methods of validation of traditional use and quality control. This approach has met with success in some parts of the world but is not always appreciated by national governments and international agencies. Related areas of concern such as conservation of ecology and culture must be integrated with any such program. Plants used in traditional medicine therefore have an important role to play in the maintenance of health in all parts of the world and in the introduction of new treatments.
We do not know at the beginning of this new millennium if ethnobotanists and anthropologists will be able to rescue most of the indigenous knowledge systems before they are lost forever. [Cox][1] describes the importance of knowledge from many cultures in finding new therapeutic drugs and his experiences as an ethnobotanist.
[1]: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/287/5450/44
This report deals with the results of a study of present day uses of traditional medicinal materials in Israel. The survey covered selected markets in medicinal materials, belonging to various religious and ethnic communities, and also included questioning of the sellers and buyers about the healing characteristics of the various materials. The survey yielded information on many and varied medicinal materials, of which 310 are identified according to the following classifications, 264 species of plants (85.1%); 20 species of animals (6.5%); 19 kinds of minerals (6.5%); and seven materials of other or mixed origin (2.3%). Analysis of the data showed that a significant proportion of the materials were of local origin (51.5%) and some were imported from other countries. These data demonstrate that there is still a flourishing and well developed trade in these materials - a trade which is the remnant of a rich and ancient medical culture, which is disappearing from the modern world.
This article presents the results of a study of the medicinal uses of natural substances in medieval and Ottoman al-Sham (the Levant). It involved a meticulous survey of a wide range of historical sources spanning approximately 1100 years and including medical and pharmacological literature, travelogues, geographical and agricultural literature, dictionaries, archives, the Genizah and other medieval sources. Our main goal was to arrive at a reconstruction of the unwritten materia medica of the medieval and Ottoman Levant. Of the many and varied medicinal substances on which we were able to extract information, we were able to identify 286. These are presented according to the following classification: 234 species of plants (81.8%); 27 species of animals (9.5%); 15 kinds of minerals (5.2%) and 10 substances of other or mixed origin (3.5%). Analysis of the data showed that the region under study served as the geographic origin of the majority of the substances, only a minority of the materials was imported. The main reason for this is the geographic location of the Levant as a junction between three continents, as a cultural meeting point and as trade center. Finally, our data revealed that the al-Sham region was an independent source of production and marketing of medicinal substances during the medieval and Ottoman periods.
The results of a survey of present-day traditional medicinal materials conducted in 1998-1999 in the Kingdom of Jordan are reported. The study covered selected markets of medicinal substances of ethnic communities throughout the kingdom, and also included questioning of the sellers about the healing characteristics of the various materials. The survey yielded information on many and varied medicinal substances, of which 304 are identified according to the following classifications: 236 species of plants (77.6%); 30 species of animals (9.8%); 29 kinds of inorganic substances (9.6%); and 9 materials of other or mixed origin (3%). Analysis of the data showed that some substances were of local origin (41.8%), but the majority of the substances (45.4%) were imported from other countries. 12.8% of the substances were both local and imported. These data demonstrate that there is still a flourishing and well-developed trade in these materials--a trade that is the remnant of a rich and ancient medical culture, which is disappearing from the modern world.
To assess the current situation of sales and uses of herbal medicines in Jordan, more than 100 herbalists throughout the country were interviewed. The collected data included the types of herbs present in the market, the recommendations made by the herbalists in the treatment of ailments, the level of education and training of the herbalists, and miscellaneous observations. One hundred and fifty medicinal plant species were present in the local market. Based on their availability in the market and on the herbalists' recommendations, 9 plant species were considered very common and 17 were considered as common. The survey indicated that most of the herbalists were not educated or trained in the field of herbal medicine except for their expertise gained from their predecessor, none were licensed for this particular purpose; several odd or unprecedented recommendations were passed to the customers. This survey emphasizes the necessity of proper handling of herbal medicines that requires proper regulations and licensing.
Determining what fraction of texts and manuscripts have survived from Antiquity and the Middle Ages has been highly problematic. Analyzing the transmission of texts as the "paleodemography" of their manuscripts yields definite and surprisingly high estimates. Parchment copies of the foremost medieval textbooks on arithmetical and calendrical calculation closely fit age distributions expected for populations with logistic growth and manuscripts with exponential survivorship. The estimated half-lives of copies agree with Bischoff's paleographically based suggestion that roughly one in seven manuscripts survive in some form from ninth-century Carolingian workshops. On this basis, many if not most of the leading technical titles circulating in Latin probably survived, even from late Antiquity.
Plants have provided Man with all his needs in terms of shelter, clothing, food, flavours and fragrances as not the least, medicines. Plants have formed the basis of sophisticated traditional medicine systems among which are Ayurvedic, Unani, Chinese amongst others. These systems of medicine have given rise to some important drugs still in use today. Among the lesser-known systems of medicines are the African and Australian, Central and South American amongst others. The search for new molecules, nowadays, has taken a slightly different route where the science of ethnobotany and ethnopharmacognosy are being used as guide to lead the chemist towards different sources and classes of compounds. It is in this context that the flora of the tropics by virtue of its diversity has a significant role to play in being able to provide new leads. Nonetheless the issue of sovereignty and property rights should also be addressed in line with the Convention for Biological Diversity (CBD). This paper highlights the above, provides an overview of the classes of molecules present in plants and gives some examples of the types of molecules and secondary metabolites that have led to the development of these pharmacologically active extracts. The paper also presents some data on the use of plant products in the development of functional foods, addresses the needs for validation of plant extracts and always stressing on safety, efficacy and quality of phyto-medications.
The Taylor-Schechter (T-S) collection at Cambridge University Library is the biggest of all Cairo Genizah collections in the world. The importance and the potential of research into the medical aspects of the Genizah documents were clear to researcher since the early 1960s. A few works have been published since, usually focusing on one subject, or even important single manuscripts. The current research concerned mainly with one aspect of the history of medicine of the Jewish community of Cairo (as a reflection of Eastern medieval societies), namely the practical uses of natural substances for medicine. The most interesting and original information is undoubtedly to be found in the 141 prescriptions, as they reflect the medical reality that actually existed. And indeed, 242 substances were recorded in the prescriptions identified: 195 substances of plants origin (80.6%), 27 inorganic materials (11.2%) and 20 substances of animal origin (8.2%) were recorded as being in practical used for medicinal purposes. The most frequently mentioned substances were the rose, myrobalan, sugar, almonds, and endive. The most prevalent ailments: eye diseases, headache, constipations (purgative), cough, skin diseases, stomach, fever, gynaecological problems, haemorrhoids, liver ailments, lice, swellings, dental trouble, ulcers, and problems of the urinary tract.
The importance of the Genizah for the research of the medieval Mediterranean communities, supplying information on almost every aspect of life, is well known among historian. Less known is that pharmacy was the most popular of all branches of the healing art in the medieval Jewish community of Cairo, according to the Genizah manuscripts. Sources for study of medieval practical drugs are extremely rare since most records naturally vanish over the years, and only some medical books, which contained theoretical pharmacology, have survived to the present day. Drugs lists enable us to understand medieval practical pharmacy and to reconstruct their inventories. This study reports on 71 original drugs lists that were found in the Genizah; they are different from merchants' letters dealing with commerce in drugs and give no instructions for the use or preparation of formulas as usually found in prescriptions. Twenty-six lists are written in Judeo-Arabic and 45 in Arabic, none of the lists is written in Hebrew. The longest list contains 63 identified substances. These lists were apparently used by pharmacists for professional and business purposes as inventories of drugs, records, orders, or even receipts. Two hundred and six different drugs are mentioned in the drugs lists of which 167 are of plant origin, 16 are of animal origin, and the remaining 23 are inorganic. The lists point directly to the place they occupied on the shelves of the pharmacies that could be found in the lanes and alleys of the Jewish quarter of Cairo. The most frequently mentioned substance were myrobalan (27), pepper and saffron (21), lentisk (15), almond, basil, rose, rosemary (14), cattle products, camphor and spikenard (13).