ABSTRACT
Qiushi is a kind of elixir or medicine. This article examines the books which recorded the formulas for preparing Qiushi. It is found that Liang Fang (Valuable Prescriptions) written by Shen Kuo and Zheng Lei Ben Cao (recognized pharmacopoeia) written by Tang Shengwei recorded the first three formulas. Shen kuo, who recorded two kinds of methods to prepare Qiushi, was neglected by other medical books. The aim of the method to prepare Renzhongbai (natural sediment of urine) was actually to prepare Qiushi.
Subject(s)
Drug Prescriptions/history , Medicine, Chinese Traditional/history , Pharmaceutical Preparations/history , Phytotherapy/history , China , History of Medicine , History, Medieval , Materia Medica/history , Medicine, Chinese Traditional/methods , Publishing/historyABSTRACT
Sakae Miki said Classified Emergency Materia Medica had been the dominant standard of herbology throughout Joseon Dynasty, and that Compendium of Materia Medica had only been accepted so lately that a few books used herbological result of it in the late Joseon Dynasty. But according to Visiting Old Beijing Diary written by Munjoong Seo in 1690, Compendium of Materia Medica was in fact introduced before the year 1712, the year Miki Sakae argued to be the year Compendium of Materia Medica was accepted to Joseon officially. Now, we can assume that the introducing year of Compendium of Materia Medica was faster than Miki Sakae's opinion by the following reasons; the effort of Joseon government and intellectuals to buy new books of Ming & Ching; the publishing year of the book for living in countryside regarded as the first citing literature of Compendium of Materia Medica. And the True Records of the Joseon Dynasty and many collections written by intellectuals in the 18th century show that the herbological knowledge from Compendium of Materia Medica had already spread to the corners of Joseon Dynasty. Thus we can make the following assumption: Classified Emergency Materia Medica and Compendium of Materia Medica had coexisted in the late Joseon Dynasty. Sakae Miki suggested 6 examples which used Compendium of Materia Medica in the late Joseon Dynasty. I reviewed two of them in this paper, Essentials of Materia Medica & Handbook of Prescriptions from Materia Medica. Essentials of Materia Medica quoted Compendium of Materia Medica briefly focusing clinical use, and Handbook of Prescriptions from Materia Medica also re-compiled Compendium of Materia Medica to practical use according to the form of Treasured Mirror of Eastern Medicine. It means that the results of Compendium of Materia Medica have been used positively, based on the herbology of materia medica from countryside. From this point of view, the hyphothesis there weren't any herbological progress after accepting Compendium of Materia Medica in the late Joseon Dynasty by Sakae Miki can be denied.
Subject(s)
Materia Medica/history , Publishing/history , History, 18th Century , History, 19th Century , Humans , Plants, MedicinalABSTRACT
In 2010 the 200th anniversary of the Organon is celebrated by the homeopathic community. Samuel Hahnemann's Organon of Rational Therapeutics, published in 1810, however, marks neither the beginning of homeopathy nor the endpoint of its development. On the one hand, its contents are based on terms and concepts developed and published by Hahnemann during the preceding two decades. On the other hand, the five revised editions of the Organon that followed in the next three decades contain major changes of theory and conceptions. Hahnemann's basic idea, running through all the stages of the foundation, elaboration, and defence of his doctrine, may be detected by a comparative review of his works from a historical and philosophical perspective.
Subject(s)
Homeopathy/history , Materia Medica/history , Pharmacopoeias, Homeopathic as Topic/history , Publishing/history , Anniversaries and Special Events , Germany , History, 19th Century , History, 20th Century , History, 21st Century , Humans , Pharmaceutical Preparations/historyABSTRACT
This explorative paper analyses the Allgemeine Homiopathische Zeitung (AHZ) in the 1950ies and 1960ies, paying particular attention to how the homoeopathic physicians who published there commented on modernity in medicine and society. Toxicology, endocrinology, cybernetics and neural therapy were discussed by them as possible links with biomedicine. Modern civilization was mainly portrayed as pathogenic, but sometimes that very fact was seen as a chance for homoeopathy. Also, many authors of the AHZ had a positive view on some aspects of modern medicine and technology. The paper ends by discussing possibilities for further research in contemporary history based on journal publications by homoeopathic doctors.
Subject(s)
Delivery of Health Care/history , Homeopathy/history , Periodicals as Topic/history , Publishing/history , Social Change/history , Germany, West , History, 20th CenturyABSTRACT
After centuries of fluctuant usages, the theriac, this kind of universal drug to cure everything, was popular again starting from the XVIIth century and it will remain at the official french pharmacopea up to 1908. Viper was one of the key components, which was an opportunity for several authors to discuss about its real therapeutic value. Amont the tens of constituants of theriac, opium, in large quantities, was also an important part of this "électuaire". Its success was at the origin of many formulations (such as poors' theriac and celestial theriac), and falsifications, the most famous being the "Orvietan", driving pharmacists to produce it themselves. Counterfeiting being frequent, it became usual to prepare theriac publicly up to the french Revolution. Very much criticized, as a symbol of polypharmacy more and more rejected, theriac will progressively disappear during the XIXth century, sometime replaced nowadays by new universal drugs outside the pharmaceutical network.
Subject(s)
Antidotes/history , Materia Medica/history , History of Pharmacy , History, 17th Century , History, 18th Century , History, 19th Century , History, 20th Century , Publishing/historyABSTRACT
It is well-known that the modern history of salicylates began in 1899 when the compound acetylsalicylic acid was registered and introduced commercially as "aspirin" by the Bayer Company of Germany. As a matter of fact, however, remedies made from willow bark had been used to treat fever and rheumatic complaints at least since 1763, when Edward Stone described their efficacy against malarian fever. A number of Italian scientists made significant contributions during the long period of research leading up to the synthesis of acetylsalicylic acid and its widespread use in rheumatic diseases. In this paper we will review the contributions of some of these researchers, beginning with Bartolomeo Rigatelli, who in 1824 used a willow bark extract as a therapeutic agent, denominating it "salino amarissimo antifebbrile" (very bitter antipyretic salt). In the same year, Francesco Fontana described this natural compound, giving it the name "salicina" (salicin). Two other Italian chemists added considerably to current knowledge of the salicylates: Raffaele Piria in 1838, while working as a research fellow in Paris, extracted the chemical compound salicylic acid, and Cesare Bertagnini in 1855 published a detailed description of the classic adverse event associated with salicylate overdoses--tinnitus--which he studied by deliberately ingesting excessive doses himself. Bertagnini and above all Piria also played conspicuous roles in the history of Italy during the period of the Italian Risorgimento, participating as volunteers in the crucial battle of Curtatone and Montanara during the first Italian War of Independence.
Subject(s)
Salicylates/history , Analgesics, Non-Narcotic/adverse effects , Analgesics, Non-Narcotic/history , Analgesics, Non-Narcotic/therapeutic use , Anti-Inflammatory Agents, Non-Steroidal/adverse effects , Anti-Inflammatory Agents, Non-Steroidal/history , Anti-Inflammatory Agents, Non-Steroidal/therapeutic use , Aspirin/adverse effects , Aspirin/history , Aspirin/therapeutic use , Autoexperimentation , Benzyl Alcohols/isolation & purification , Drug Overdose , Fever/drug therapy , Glucosides , History, 18th Century , History, 19th Century , History, 20th Century , Italy , Malaria/drug therapy , Military Medicine/history , Paris , Phytotherapy , Plant Bark , Plant Extracts/therapeutic use , Publishing/history , Salicylates/adverse effects , Salicylates/therapeutic use , Salicylic Acid/isolation & purification , Salix , Sicily , Tinnitus/chemically inducedABSTRACT
Like any artist, the paractitioner of the healing art should exactly know his tools, i.e. his medicines and the directions for their application. In addition, he should be able to rely on their genuineness. Regarding the tool "Organon", considerable uncertainty has been expressed by some physicians about the authenticity of Hahnemann's instructions for preparing and applying Q-potencies, as described in the sixth edition of the Organon of Medicine published by Richard Haehl in 1921. Since 1992, however, the first text-critical edition of the sixth edition of the Organonis available. Unlike Haehl's edition this one is exclusively based on Hahnemann's original manuscript and precisely transcribing all its handwriting, vouches for its authenticity. Hence there is no reason left to ignore Hahnemanns instructions concerning Q-potencies. This paper presents the history of the reception of Q-potencies as well as their prerequisites and evolution up to Hahnemann's final modifications of his earlier directions. As it turns out, these late instructions of Hahnemann do not mean complete change of all his previous opinions. Rather they are the logical completion of a course followed by him for ten years already. Q-potencies were Hahnemann's solution of the following therapeutic dilemma: on the one side physicians are inclined to repeat the dose of a high potency as often as possible in order to accelerate the process of healing; on the other side they should refrain from repeating the dose to avoid violent aggravations of the state of the patient.
Subject(s)
Books/history , Homeopathy/history , Publishing/history , History, 19th Century , History, 20th CenturyABSTRACT
The historiography of medicine in South Asia often assumes the presence of preordained, homogenous, coherent and clearly-bound medical systems. They also tend to take the existence of a medical 'mainstream' for granted. This article argues that the idea of an 'orthodox', 'mainstream' named allopathy and one of its 'alternatives' homoeopathy were co-produced in Bengal. It emphasises the role of the supposed 'fringe', ie. homoeopathy, in identifying and organising the 'orthodoxy' of the time. The shared market for medicine and print provided a crucial platform where such binary identities such as 'homoeopaths' and 'allopaths' were constituted and reinforced. This article focuses on a range of polemical writings by physicians in the Bengali print market since the 1860s. Published mostly in late nineteenth-century popular medical journals, these concerned the nature, definition and scope of 'scientific' medicine. The article highlights these published disputes and critical correspondence among physicians as instrumental in simultaneously shaping the categories 'allopathy' and 'homoeopathy' in Bengali print. It unravels how contemporary understandings of race, culture and nationalism informed these medical discussions. It further explores the status of these medical contestations, often self-consciously termed 'debates', as an essential contemporary trope in discussing 'science' in the vernacular.
Subject(s)
Dissent and Disputes/history , Holistic Health/history , Homeopathy/history , Publishing/history , History, 19th Century , Humans , IndiaABSTRACT
This article explores the profound impact of the thought of Claude Bernard (1813-78) and his philosophy of experimentalism elaborated in his masterwork An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine. I argue that Bernard's far-ranging theoretical impact on medicine and biology marks the end of conventional vitalism and the elusive notion of a "vital force" as a legitimate scientific concept. His understanding of medicine is as epistemologically significant in its time as Newton's contribution was to the physical sciences in the seventeenth century. This essay treats Bernard's philosophical ambitions seriously, exploring his important, even central, role in the mental world of nineteenth-century France. This includes his influence on Henri Bergson (1859-1941) and other late-nineteenth century thinkers. The subtext of Bernard's experimental epistemology is also contrasted with a key idealist philosopher of the period, the German Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), and placed in the context of the larger European philosophical sphere. In contrast to much of mid-nineteenth-century philosophy, Bernard, in creating the framework for experimental medicine, argued for an experimental approach in which a priori assumptions were to be strictly constrained. Bernard's thoughts on the nature of experiment put an end to "systems" in medicine, ironically by replacing all previous medical philosophies with the all-embracing "system" of experiment. And yet, while "vital forces" fade after Bernard, a form of vitalism still flourishes. Even in Bernard's own work, in the struggle with concepts like determinism, complexity, and causality, there is a realization of the unique character of living function in a kind of "physical vitalism."
Subject(s)
Biomedical Research/history , Knowledge , Physiology/history , Publishing/history , Vitalism/history , France , History, 19th Century , Humans , Philosophy/historyABSTRACT
The TE and NT cited under ink cap in Zheng lei ben cao (Classified Materia Medica) cannot be found in the contents and fragmentary volumes of Xin xiu ben cao (Newly Revised Materia Medica), yet can be seen in the "annotations of Shu ben cao (Materia Medica of Sichuan)", cited by Zhang Yuxi. This showed that the TE and NT were, in fact, coming from Shu ben cao, whose old name was Chong guang ying gong ben cao (Augmented Yinggong's Materia Medica). The so - called Yinggong was Li Ji, who compiled Tang ben cao (Materia Medica of the Tang Dynasty) by the imperial order, and gained the title Master Yingguogong, hence the title. Chong guang ying gong ben cao was meant revised Tang ben cao. This was the reason why Tang Shenwei called Shu ben cao as Tang ben cao right away in his Zheng lei ben cao.