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The Roman Empire
Published in Scott M. Jackson, Skin Disease and the History of Dermatology, 2023
It is difficult to place Dioscorides in one of the competing schools of the time, as his views developed out of the rational Hellenistic medical tradition.53 He obviously promoted pharmacological intervention and rejected Methodic principles, which downplayed medications. In his text, he did not entertain the controversies of his time; he even ignored the concept of the four humors.54 In fact, there was no discernable theory of disease in the work.55 His interest was the medicinal value of the individual remedies, not providing a list of remedies for a given condition.56 Each chapter adheres to the following order of information: name and picture of the substance; habitat; botanical description; drug properties; medicinal usages; harmful side effects; quantities and dosages; harvesting, preparation, and storage instructions; adulteration methods and tests for detection; veterinary usages; magical and non-medical usages; and specific geographic locations or habitats.57 There are approximately 1000 substances in De materia medica, some 600 of which are plants.
Encounters with Linnaeus? Modernisation of pharmacopoeia through Bernard Read and Zhao Yuhuang up to the present 1
Published in Vivienne Lo, Michael Stanley-Baker, Dolly Yang, Routledge Handbook of Chinese Medicine, 2022
Irrespective of political context or changing availability, materia medica studies require textual analysis and reading abilities in classical Chinese and familiarity with the often insider jargon and regional knowhow of Chinese medicine practitioners (Unschuld 2012) and/or knowledge of recent developments in folk medicine (Farquhar and Lai 2014) and material histories of toxicity (Akahori 1989; Liu 2015). While the context of Chinese materia medica is culturally rich and geographically and biologically vast, expertise in this field mainly calls for old-style philology, as well as familiarity with the newest scientific findings and surveys in the field. The contours of Chinese pharmacy have been shaped over time by economic and natural availability and by multiple bibliographic, epistemological, political, material, and ethnic praxes. It is the task of historians and anthropologists of science and medicine in China to contextualise these variations, in the face of historical as well as ongoing efforts to produce reductive simulacra of this Wunderkammer of known and manipulated material objects in the necessarily flexible form of standardised, unified, scientific norms.
Introduction
Published in Michael J. O’Dowd, The History of Medications for Women, 2020
Materia Medica Woman is a book that contains lists of medications used by, or prescribed for, women from earliest times to the present, a form of historical catalog. The histories of many remedies are described in detail in the form of monographs while others, though listed, are ignored. Some botanical, chemical, pharmacological and therapeutic details are included, as are extensive quotations from old and rare books, and from modern texts. Some of the history of obstetrics and gynecology, and of general medicine, complements the text, as do a number of short biographies and illustrations.
Gnetum montanum extract induces apoptosis by inhibiting the activation of AKT in SW480 human colon cancer cells
Published in Pharmaceutical Biology, 2022
Xianglong Pan, Xiaotao Hou, Fan Zhang, Peiling Tang, Wanruo Wan, Zixia Su, Yeguo Yang, Wei Wei, Zhengcai Du, Jiagang Deng, Erwei Hao
The stems and rhizomes of G. montanum were collected in Jinxiu Yao Autonomous County, Guangxi Province, China in 2019. The species of the plant was identified by Prof. Wei Songji of School of Pharmacy, Guangxi University of Chinese Medicine. The plant is preserved in the Guangxi Key Laboratory of Efficacy Study on Chinese Materia Medica. The stems and rhizomes were processed to produce GME at the Guangxi Key Laboratory of Efficacy Study on Chinese Materia Medica to obtain GME. Briefly, 1 kg of dried stems and rhizomes were ground into powder using a heavy-duty blender, then soaked in 15 L of 95% ethanol. Extraction was carried out in a rotary shaker at a speed of 120 rpm for 24 h. Extraction was repeated for three times. The residues were separated through filtration. The three batches of filtrates were combined, then concentrated under reduced pressure. The extraction rate was 20% under this procedure. The extract was freeze-dried and stored at −20 °C until further usage.
Urinary paraplegia and William Withey Gull
Published in Journal of the History of the Neurosciences, 2021
Gull (1816–1890; see Figure 3), son of an Essex bargeman, was born on his father’s boat at Colchester in 1816. He was educated locally in various parts of East Anglia, and in his later teens he worked as a pupil teacher with an interest in biology. After being introduced to one of the governors of Guy’s Hospital in London who seemed to appreciate his potential, Gull was brought to the hospital and there commenced medical studies. In 1841, he graduated as a bachelor of medicine from the University of London. In the following year, he taught Materia Medica in the hospital. For a decade after 1846, he worked there as a lecturer in physiology and comparative anatomy. In 1846, he became an M.D. graduate of the University of London, and two years later was elected Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London and appointed physician-in-residence at Guy’s Hospital. His association with that institution continued for the remainder of his career.
Therapeutic effects of Sheng Xue Fang in a cyclophosphamide-induced anaemia mouse model
Published in Pharmaceutical Biology, 2021
Lu Dou, Xue Gong, Qing Wu, Fangzheng Mou
The TCM theory proposes that anaemia belongs to categories, such as ‘blood deficiency’, ‘chlorosis’, ‘blood syndrome’, and ‘consumptive disease’ which manifest in dizziness, tinnitus, insomnia, pallor, weakness, and other symptoms. Chinese Materia Medica is derived from natural plants and has high safety, few side effects, and significant efficacy (Wang et al. 2019; Cui et al. 2020; Kahn et al. 2020). SXF has been used in the clinical treatment of anaemia for many years and has been effective in significantly improving symptoms of anaemia (Da-Rong et al. 2019). However, its main active component and target of action are unclear; thus, we conducted the current study. SXF significantly improved RBC and HGB levels, and HCT in female Balb/c mice. However, the improvement was not observed in male mice, and no improvement was observed in WBCs in female mice. No significant WBC-enhancing effect of SXF was observed in these mice, which may be due to species differences between humans and mice. There were also differences between male and female mice regarding RBC increases, suggesting that male and female mice may also show differences in immune resistance and haematopoietic function (Borkar et al. 2020; Merikangas and Almasy 2020; Rubin et al. 2020).