Chapter 2 Pharmacognosy and its history
people, plants and natural products
Sources of information
The sources available for understanding the history of medicinal (as well as nutritional and toxic) plant use are archaeological records and written documents. The desire to summarize information for future generations and to present the writings of the classical (mostly early Greek) scholars to a wider audience was the major stimulus for writing about medicinal plants. The traditions of Japan, India and China were also documented in many early manuscripts and books (Mazar 1998, Waller 1998). No written records are available for other regions of the world either because they were never produced (e.g. Australia, many parts of Africa and South America, and some regions of Asia) or because documents were lost or destroyed by (especially European) invaders (e.g. in Meso-America). Therefore, for many parts of the world the first written records are reports by early travellers who were sent by their respective feudal governments to explore the wealth of the New World. These people included missionaries, explorers, salesmen, researchers and, later, colonial officers. The information was important to European societies for reasons of potential dangers, such as poisoned arrows posing a threat to explorers and settlers, as well as the prospect of finding new medicines.
Early Arabic and European records
An early European example is medicinal mushrooms, which were found with the Austrian/Italian ‘iceman’ of the Alps of Ötztal (3300 BCE). Two walnut-sized objects were identified as the birch polypore (Piptoporus betulinus), a bracket fungus common in alpine and other cooler environments. This species contains toxic natural products, and one of its active constituents (agaric acid) is a very strong and effective purgative, which leads to strong and short-lasting diarrhoea. It also has antibiotic effects against mycobacteria and toxic effects on diverse organisms (Capasso 1998). Since the iceman also harboured eggs of the whipworm (Trichuris trichiuria) in his gut, he may well have suffered from gastrointestinal cramps and anaemia. The finding of Piptoporus betulinus points to the possible treatment of gastrointestinal problems using these mushrooms. Also, scarred cuts on the skin of the iceman might indicate the use of medicinal plants, since the burning of herbs over an incision on the skin was a frequent practice in many ancient European cultures (Capasso 1998).
The earliest documented record, which presumably relates to medicinal (or ritual) plants, dates from 60,000 BCE in the grave of a Neanderthal man from Shanidar IV, an archaeological site in Iraq. Pollen of several species of plants was discovered (Leroi-Gourhan 1975, Solecki 1975, Lietava 1992):
Centaurea solstitialis L. (knapweed, Asteraceae)
Ephedra altissima (ephedra, Ephedraceae)
Achillea sp. (yarrow, Asteraceae)
Althea sp. (mallow, Malvaceae)
Muscari sp. (grape hyacinth, Liliaceae/Hyacinthaceae)
detailed archaeobotanical descriptions of the pollen were never published
normally, pollen does not survive well in the Near East
there is good evidence that ants often hoard pollen in a similar context (Sommer 1999).
Classical Arabic, Greek and Roman records
Greek medicine has been the focus of historical pharmaceutical research for many decades. The Greek scholar Pedanius Dioscorides (Fig. 2.1) from Anarzabos (1 BC) is considered to be the ‘father of [Western] medicine’. His works were a doctrine governing pharmaceutical and medical practice for more than 1500 years, and which heavily influenced European pharmacy. He was an excellent pharmacognosist and described more than 600 medicinal plants. Other Greek and Roman scholars were also influential in developing related fields of health care and the natural sciences. Hippocrates, a Greek medical doctor (ca. 460–375 BC) came from the island of Kos, and heavily influenced European medical traditions. He was the first of a series of (otherwise largely unknown) authors who produced the so-called Corpus Hippocraticum (a collection of works on medical practice). The Graeco-Roman medical doctor Claudius Galen (Galenus) (130–201 AD) summarized the complex body of Graeco-Roman pharmacy and medicine, and his name survives in the pharmaceutical term ‘galenical’. Pliny the Elder (23 or 24–79 AD, killed in Pompeii at the eruption of Vesuvius) was the first to produce a ‘cosmography’ (a detailed account) of natural history, which included cosmology, mineralogy, botany, zoology and medicinal products derived from plants and animals.
Classical Chinese records
Written documents about medicinal plants are essential elements of many cultures of Asia. In China, India, Japan and Indonesia, writings pointing to a long tradition of plant use survive. In China, the field developed as an element of Taoist thought: followers tried to assure a long life (or immortality) through meditation, special diets, medicinal plants, exercise and specific sexual practices. The most important work in this tradition is the Shen nong ben caojing (the ‘Drug treatise of the divine countryman’) which is now only available as part of later compilations (Waller 1998; see also Chapter 12, p. 177 et seq). This 2200-year-old work includes 365 drugs, most of botanical origin. For each, the following information is provided:
These scholarly ideas were passed on from master to student, and modified and adapted over centuries of use. Unfortunately, in none of the cases do we have a surviving written record. Table 2.1 summarizes some of the Chinese works that include important chapters on drugs.
Table 2.1 Chinese works that include important sections on drugs (after Waller 1998)
Year | Author if known | Title |
---|---|---|
200 BC | Shen Nong | Shen nong ben cao jing (the drug treatise of the divine countryman) |
2nd century | Shang han za bing lun (about the various illnesses caused by cold damage) | |
6th century | Tao Hongjing | Shen nong ben cao jing fi zhu (collected commentaries on Shen nong ben cao jing) |
10th to 12th centuries | Ben cao tu jing | |
16th century | Li Shizhen | Ben cao gang mu (information about medicinal drugs: a monographic treatment) |
1746 | Jing shi zheng lei bei ji ben cao |
In the 16th century the first systematic treatise on (herbal) drugs using a scientific method was produced. The Ben Cao Gang Mu (‘Drugs’, by Li Shizhen, 1518–1593) contains information about 1892 drugs (in 52 chapters) and more than 11,000 recipes are given in an appendix. The drugs are classified into 16 categories (e.g. herbs, cereals, vegetables, fruits). For each drug the following information is provided (Waller 1998):
• Classification according to the four characteristics of temperatures and the five types of taste
• Uses (detailed information on uses according to the criteria of Chinese medicine)
• Corrections of previous mistakes
• Methods of preparing the drug
Other Asian traditional medicine
Ayurveda
Ayurveda is arguably one of the most ancient of all recorded medicinal traditions. It is considered to be the origin of systemized medicine, because ancient Hindu writings on medicine contain no references to foreign medicine whereas Greek and Middle Eastern texts do refer to ideas and drugs of Indian origin. Dioscorides (who influenced Hippocrates) is thought to have taken many of his ideas from India, so it looks as though the first comprehensive medical knowledge originated there. The term ‘Ayurveda’ comes from ayur meaning ‘life’ and veda meaning ‘knowledge’ and is a later addition to Hindu sacred writing from 1200 BC called the Artharva-veda. The first school to teach Ayurvedic medicine was at the University of Banaras in 500 BC and the great Samhita (or encyclopaedia of medicine) was written. Seven hundred years later another great encyclopaedia was written and these two together form the basis of Ayurveda. The living and the non-living environment, including humans, is composed of the elements earth (prithvi), water (jala), fire (tejac), air (vaju) and space (akasa). For an understanding of these traditions, the concept of impurity and cleansing is also essential. Illness is the consequence of imbalance between the various elements and it is the goal of treatment to restore this balance (see Chapter 12 for details).
Jamu
The status of Jamu started to improve ca. 1940 with the Second Congress of Indonesian Physicians, at which it was decided that an in-depth study of traditional medicine was needed. A further impetus was the Japanese occupation of 1942–1944, when the Dai Nippon government set up the Indonesian Traditional Medicines Committee; another boost occurred during Indonesia’s War of Independence when orthodox medicine was in short supply. President Sukarno decreed that the nation should be self-supporting, so many people turned to the traditional remedies used by their ancestors (see Beers 2001).
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