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The Americas
Published in Michael J. O’Dowd, The History of Medications for Women, 2020
Viburnum opulus, cramp bark, or guelder rose, and the related V. prunifolium, contain scopoletin, a coumarin which has a sedative effect on the uterus. Useful for dysmenorrhea and threatened miscarriage, Viburnum was listed in all the major pharmacopoeias in the early pan of this century (Squire, 1908) and remained in the American National Formulary until 1960. V. prunifolium contains salicin which also occurs in the willow, Salix alba, and from which salicylic acid was derived. Both salicin and salicylic acid are analgesic chemicals and were first synthetically prepared in 1852, but were found to cause marked gastric irritation. In 1899 the Bayer Company produced acetylsalicylic acid, known better by its proprietary name, aspirin (Griggs, 1997).
Evaluation of Anti-ulcer Potential of Sphenodesme involucrata var. paniculata (C.B. Clarke) Munir Leaves on Various Gastric Aggressive Factors
Published in Parimelazhagan Thangaraj, Phytomedicine, 2020
P. S. Sreeja, K. Arunachalam, Parimelazhagan Thangaraj
From the earliest times, therapeutic agents from nature including plants, animals, and minerals have been used to treat human disorders/health and, consequently, humans mainly made use of plants as remedies (Fabricant and Farnsworth 2001) as revealed by the Egyptian papyri (2000 BC). According to the studies by Quer and Davit (1962), the Greeks Hippocrates and Dioscorides contributed much to the legacy about the herbal drugs used to heal the ills/problems of mankind at the time, showing that the plants possessed therapeutic properties by the action, including synergistic action, of the active chemical constituents in it. The traditional medication advises the usage of crude extracts to utilize the multifactorial activity of multicompounds in plants instead of considering one disease-one target-one drug observations. Traditional practitioners believe in the synergistic actions and multitarget properties of plant extracts, which contain a mixture of compounds that are able to minimize the multiple factors observed associated with a disease (Leonti and Casu 2013). Research on herbal products took on a greater proportion from the discovery of morphine, isolated from the plant Papaver somniferum, which was used in visceral pain. Another example of a drug is salicylic acid, isolated in 1828 from the Salix alba plant, and used to combat fever and pain.
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Published in Anton Sebastian, A Dictionary of the History of Medicine, 2018
Analgesics Aulus Cornelius Celsus (25 BC–AD 50) wrote De Medicina which mentioned the use of mandrake and poppy for relief of pain in his fifth book on drugs. Myrrh, a substance obtained from Commiphora, was used as an analgesic by ancient Greeks and Romans. The bark of the white willow, Salix alba, containing salicylic acid, remains an ancient remedy for pain. Modern analgesics started to be discovered in the 19th century. The first analgesic drug, salicylic acid, was obtained in a pure form in 1853 and acetanilide followed in 1875. Phenacetin was introduced in 1886. See aspirin.
Ocular nonsteroidal inflammatory drugs: where do we stand today?
Published in Cutaneous and Ocular Toxicology, 2020
S. A. Kandarakis, P. Petrou, E. Papakonstantinou, D. Spiropoulos, A. Rapanou, I. Georgalas
Targeting inflammation and treating its consequences dates approximately 2500 years ago, when the Greek physician Hippocrates introduced the use of an extract from willow bark and leaves, to treat fever and pain (400 BC). Since then, various nations, including early Chinese, Indian and Africans, have used these salicylate-containing plants (Salix alba and other members of the Salix species) for their anti-inflammatory and analgesic properties. However, it was in the mid-late nineteenth century that the progress in the scientific fields of chemistry and pharmacology made possible the isolation of the active component of these plants, salicylate. Few years later, in 1899, acetylsalicyclic acid (aspirin), the more palatable form of salicyclic acid, was introduced and successfully commercialised by Bayer3.
Dermocosmetics: beneficial adjuncts in the treatment of acne vulgaris
Published in Journal of Dermatological Treatment, 2021
Elena Araviiskaia, Jose Luis Lopez Estebaranz, Carlo Pincelli
Inflammatory responses are involved in the early stages of acne development, highlighting the importance of anti-inflammatory properties in dermocosmetics (4,37). Salix alba is the active extract of willow bark, which has been reported to have anti-inflammatory effects such as decreasing tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α release, cyclooxygenase (COX)-2 expression, nitric oxide release, and interleukin (IL)-1β and IL-6 release (38–40). When Salix alba was combined with decanediol, an antimicrobial agent, a decrease in lipopolysaccharide-induced release of growth factors and pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-6 and IL-8 was observed with both agents in combination and in isolation (41).
Solid lipid nanoparticles and nanostructured lipid carrier-based nanotherapeutics for the treatment of psoriasis
Published in Expert Opinion on Drug Delivery, 2021
The active constituent of Salix alba is salicin, which is a precursor of aspirin, whereas Smilax China mainly consists of quercetin. Both of these constituents possess a number of pharmacological properties of which the important ones necessary for psoriasis are their anti-inflammatory and anti-proliferative activities [64,65].