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Leprosy (Hansen's Disease)
Published in Scott M. Jackson, Skin Disease and the History of Dermatology, 2023
In the almost 70-year period between the discovery of the bacillus and the discovery of effective antibiotic therapy, one treatment gained attention and became commonplace in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: chaulmoogra oil. Extracted from the seeds of the chaulmoogra tree (Hydnocarpus wightianus), this oil had been used in Eastern medicine as a treatment for leprosy for hundreds of years.57 It was introduced into Western medicine by British physician Frederic John Mouat in 1854, but it would be another 50 years before the oil entered the mainstream in Europe and the United States. While the oral version was most effective, nausea was a limiting side effect. Intravenous, intramuscular, and subcutaneous injections were instead tried but led to varying degrees of complications such as pain and abscess formation. Esters of the fatty acids in the chaulmoogra oil were extracted and given, also with mixed results. The drug reached its peak use in the 1920s and 1930s, before falling out of favor when the first antibiotic for leprosy, promin, was developed in the 1940s.58 Promin is the pro-drug of dapsone, which became the mainstay of treatment until antibiotic resistance was noted in the 1960s; that same decade saw the introduction of clofazimine and rifampicin. When each drug is used alone, all three can develop resistance, but the combination of these three drugs, called multi-drug therapy and advocated since 1981, can now effectively cure a person of this disease in 6 to 12 months. Isolation of infected patients is no longer necessary as antibiotic treatments erase the infectiousness of a person with this disease.
Solid lipid nanoparticles and nanostructured lipid carrier-based nanotherapeutics for the treatment of psoriasis
Published in Expert Opinion on Drug Delivery, 2021
It is derived from the seeds of Hydnocarpus wightianus. Its active ingredients are chaulmoogric acid and hydnocarpic acid, which help in the curing several skin ailments [84]. The ability of this oil to decrease erythema, inflammation, and skin lesions led to the development of chaulmoogra oil-based topical nanoemulsion loaded with methotrexate, which showed promising effect in the remedy for psoriasis [85].