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Back to the roots: A quantitative survey of herbal drugs in Dioscorides’ De Materia Medica (ex Matthioli, 1568)
No full textBackground 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
Classifying diseases and remedies in ethnomedicine and ethnopharmacology
Full text linkETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: Ethnopharmacology focuses on the understanding of local and indigenous use of medicines and therefore an emic approach is inevitable. Often, however, standard biomedical disease classifications are used to describe and analyse local diseases and remedies. Standard classifications might be a valid tool for cross-cultural comparisons and bioprospecting purposes but are not suitable to understand the local perception of disease and use of remedies. Different standard disease classification system exist but their suitability for cross-cultural comparisons of ethnomedical data has never been assessed. Depending on the research focus, (I) ethnomedical, (II) cross-cultural, and (III) bioprospecting, we provide suggestions for the use of specific classification systems.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: We analyse three different standard biomedical classification systems (the International Classification of Diseases (ICD); the Economic Botany Data Collection Standard (EBDCS); and the International Classification of Primary Care (ICPC)), and discuss their value for categorizing diseases of ethnomedical systems and their suitability for cross-cultural research in ethnopharmacology. Moreover, based on the biomedical uses of all approved plant derived biomedical drugs, we propose a biomedical therapy-based classification system as a guide for the discovery of drugs from ethnopharmacological sources.
RESULTS: Widely used standards, such as the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) by the WHO and the Economic Botany Data Collection Standard (EBDCS) are either technically challenging due to a categorization system based on clinical examinations, which are usually not possible during field research (ICD) or lack clear biomedical criteria combining disorders and medical effects in an imprecise and confusing way (EBDCS). The International Classification of Primary Care (ICPC), also accepted by the WHO, has more in common with ethnomedical reality than the ICD or the EBDCS, as the categories are designed according to patient's perceptions and are less influenced by clinical medicine. Since diagnostic tools are not required, medical ethnobotanists and ethnopharmacologists can easily classify reported symptoms and complaints with the ICPC in one of the "chapters" based on 17 body systems, psychological and social problems. Also the biomedical uses of plant-derived drugs are classifiable into 17 broad organ- and therapy-based use-categories but can easily be divided into more specific subcategories.
CONCLUSIONS: Depending on the research focus (I-III) we propose the following classification systems
From cumulative cultural transmission to evidence-based medicine: Evolution of medicinal plant knowledge in Southern Italy
Full text linkIn Mediterranean cultures written records of medicinal plant use have a long tradition. This written record contributed to building a consensus about what was perceived to be an efficacious pharmacopoeia. Passed down through millennia, these scripts have transmitted knowledge about plant uses, with high fidelity, to scholars and laypersons alike. Herbal medicine’s importance and the long-standing written record call for a better understanding of the mechanisms influencing the transmission of contemporary medicinal plant knowledge. Here we contextualize herbal medicine within evolutionary medicine and cultural evolution. Cumulative knowledge transmission is approached by estimating the causal effect of two seminal scripts about materia medica written by Dioscorides and Galen, two classical Greco-Roman physicians, on today’s medicinal plant use in the Southern Italian regions of Campania, Sardinia and Sicily. Plant-use combinations are treated as transmissible cultural traits (or memes), which in analogy to the biological evolution of genetic traits, are subjected to mutation and selection. Our results suggest that until today ancient scripts have exerted a strong influence on the use of herbal medicine. We conclude that the repeated empirical testing and scientific study of health care claims is guiding and shaping the selection of efficacious treatments and evidence-based herbal medicine
Chemical analysis of incense smokes used in Shaxi, Southwest China: a novel methodological approach in ethnobotany
No full textThe species used by the local people in Shaxi for incense differ clearly with respect to the chemical compounds of their smoke. Further, incense contains substances, which are of pharmacological interest and might support medicinal uses of smoke. Cedrol with its pleasant smell and sedative properties may be an important factor why specific plants are chosen as incense. Our findings support the idea that the effects of the use of incense as well as medicinal smoke depend on both, the cultural as well as the pharmacological context
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Herbal drugs in European tradition - A phylogenetic, chemosensory and neuropharmacological approach
Full text linkHistorical texts have emerged as valuable tools to study the therapeutic knowledge of past cultures. Dioscorides’ De Materia Medica (DMM), written in the 1st century CE is one of the most influential historical texts on use of herbal drugs in the Euro-Mediterranean area and inventories over 1000 plant, animal and mineral drugs. Despite the impact of DMM on modern (herbal) medicine the content of this work has never been systematically assessed.
This thesis studied the herbal drugs described in DMM (ex Matthioli, 1568) using a multi-disciplinary approach. The aims were I) to analyze the use of botanical drugs in the ancient Mediterranean world; II) to provide historical background data to better contextualize modern herbal medicine; III) to characterize the influence of chemosensory properties of herbal drugs on their therapeutic usage; and IV) to systematically screen herbal drugs in European tradition for cannabinomimetic effects.
A quantitative survey of the plant knowledge described in DMM resulted in a database comprising 5314 unique therapeutic uses of 536 plant taxa and 924 herbal drugs. Salient patterns in the data, such as the frequent mention of Apiaceae exudates for the treatment of neurological and mental disorders, are discussed. It is suggested that drugs that lost importance over time, remedies for diseases now controlled by industrially produced drugs and preventive medicine might be interesting starting points for research on herbal medicine and drug discovery.
A diachronic analysis estimated the causal effect of the ancient works by Dioscorides and Galen on contemporary herbal medicine in three Italian provinces. The analysis of 87 commonly used medicinal plant taxa suggests that ancient scripts have exerted strong influence on the usage of herbal medicine until today. It is concluded that the repeated empirical testing and scientific study of therapeutic claims guides the selection of efficacious remedies and evidence-based herbal medicine.
Methodological problems associated with the classification of pathologies in pre- and non-scientific knowledge systems are addressed. Three different classification systems are proposed and critically discussed in terms of their potential application in ethnobotany and ethnomedicine.
Based on the plant descriptions in DMM, botanical fieldwork in the Euro-Mediterranean area (2014 – 2016) resulted in the collection of a botanical library comprising 697 herbal drugs derived from 404 species. Extracts of 436 herbal drugs were bioassayed for inhibitory activity on fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH), a major target of the endocannabinoid system. The phytochemistry and ethnopharmacology of the most active hits are discussed in relation to observed ECS modulation. A comparison of cannbinomimetic activity and traditional uses of herbal drugs showed that specific categories of use were at best only weak predictors of the measured FAAH inhibitory effects.
To test how taste and smell properties correlate with the therapeutic use of medicinal plants, chemosensory profiles of 697 herbal drugs were experimentally assessed in 4026 sensory trials. Both specific flavor properties and overall flavor bouquet complexity resulted as predictors of plant use. The results support previous claims that the compilation of DMM was guided partly by plant taste and smell. It is suggested that chemosensory cues are important criteria for the selection of food and herbal drugs, supporting and expanding specific flavor use-links reported in the literature.
Overall, the results of this thesis perpetuate the view that ancient texts have potential for 1) natural products research; 2) contextualizing contemporary phytopharmacy; 3) theory building in medical anthropology
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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