ABSTRACT
This study aims at reporting the indigenous knowledge of the medicinal flora from the inhabitants of surroundings of the World's largest artificial planted forest "Changa Manga", Pakistan. Data were collected by direct interviews and group meetings from 81 inhabitants including 32 local healers having information regarding the use of indigenous medicinal plants over a period of one year. Different statistical tools were applied to analyze the data including Frequency citation (FC), Relative frequency citation (RFC), Use Value, Factor of informants consensus and fidelity level. This study reported 73 plant species belonging to 37 plant families and 46 genera. The majority of plant species belong to compositae family. The most commonly used medicinal plants were P. hysterophorus L., P. dactylifera L., S. indicum L, P. harmala L., P. emblica L., and A. indica A.Juss. The greatest number of species was used to cure gastrointestinal disorders. The highest fidelity level (68.18%) was of E. helioscopia to cure gastrointestinal disorders. Maximum fresh uses (17) were reported by C. dactylon (L.) Pars. While the highest number of species reporting fresh uses in similar number was 13. In this study, five novel plants are being reported for the first time in Pakistan for their ethnomedicinal worth. Our data reflect unique usage of the medicinal plants in the study area. The statistical tools used in the study proved useful in pointing the most important and disease category specific plants. High use value plant and the new reported medicinal plants might prove an important source of the isolation of pharmacologically active compounds.
Este estudo tem como objetivo relatar o conhecimento indígena sobre a flora medicinal dos habitantes do entorno da maior floresta artificial plantada do mundo, a Changa Manga, no Paquistão. Os dados foram coletados por meio de entrevistas diretas e reuniões em grupo de 81 habitantes, incluindo 32 curandeiros locais, com informações sobre o uso de plantas medicinais indígenas durante o período de um ano. Diferentes ferramentas estatísticas foram aplicadas para analisar os dados, incluindo citação de frequência (FC), citação de frequência relativa (RFC), valor de uso, fator de consenso dos informantes e nível de fidelidade. Este estudo relatou 73 espécies de plantas pertencentes a 37 famílias de plantas e 46 gêneros. A maioria das espécies de plantas pertence à família Compositae. As plantas medicinais mais utilizadas foram P. hysterophorus L., P. dactylifera L., S. indicum L., P. harmala L., P. emblica L. e A. indica A. Juss. O maior número de espécies foi usado para curar distúrbios gastrointestinais. O maior nível de fidelidade (68,18%) foi de E. helioscopia para cura de distúrbios gastrointestinais. Os usos máximos em fresco (17) foram relatados por C. dactylon (L.) Pars. enquanto o maior número de espécies relatando usos frescos em número semelhante foi de 13. Neste estudo, cinco novas plantas estão sendo relatadas pela primeira vez no Paquistão por seu valor etnomedicinal. Nossos dados refletem o uso exclusivo das plantas medicinais na área de estudo. As ferramentas estatísticas utilizadas no estudo mostraram-se úteis para apontar as plantas mais importantes e específicas da categoria de doença. Plantas de alto valor de uso e as novas plantas medicinais relatadas podem ser uma importante fonte de isolamento de compostos farmacologicamente ativos.
Subject(s)
Humans , Plants, Medicinal , Forests , Gastrointestinal Diseases , Indigenous Peoples , Medicine, Traditional , PakistanABSTRACT
This study aims at reporting the indigenous knowledge of the medicinal flora from the inhabitants of surroundings of the World's largest artificial planted forest "Changa Manga", Pakistan. Data were collected by direct interviews and group meetings from 81 inhabitants including 32 local healers having information regarding the use of indigenous medicinal plants over a period of one year. Different statistical tools were applied to analyze the data including Frequency citation (FC), Relative frequency citation (RFC), Use Value, Factor of informants consensus and fidelity level. This study reported 73 plant species belonging to 37 plant families and 46 genera. The majority of plant species belong to compositae family. The most commonly used medicinal plants were P. hysterophorus L., P. dactylifera L., S. indicum L, P. harmala L., P. emblica L., and A. indica A.Juss. The greatest number of species was used to cure gastrointestinal disorders. The highest fidelity level (68.18%) was of E. helioscopia to cure gastrointestinal disorders. Maximum fresh uses (17) were reported by C. dactylon (L.) Pars. While the highest number of species reporting fresh uses in similar number was 13. In this study, five novel plants are being reported for the first time in Pakistan for their ethnomedicinal worth. Our data reflect unique usage of the medicinal plants in the study area. The statistical tools used in the study proved useful in pointing the most important and disease category specific plants. High use value plant and the new reported medicinal plants might prove an important source of the isolation of pharmacologically active compounds.
Subject(s)
Asteraceae , Plants, Medicinal , Forests , Medicine, Traditional , PakistanABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Boron has been considered as an essential nutrient for decreasing lipid peroxidation and improving antioxidant mechanism in different animal species. On the other hand, its effect on quality or DNA damage following cryopreservation process in fish sperm is still unclear. OBJECTIVE: Experiments were designed to analyse the effect of an ionic based extender supplemented with boron on post-thawed motility, viability, fertility and DNA integrity of cryopreserved brown trout (Salmo trutta macrostigma) sperm. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Sperm samples were cryopreserved with the ionic extender containing different boron concentrations (0.1, 0.2, 0.3 and 0.4 mM) using a controlled freezer at two different freezing rates (FR-I: 10°C min-1 from +4°C to -40°C and FR-II: 15°C min-1 from +4°C to -40°C). Sperm motility, viability, fertilization, eyeing and DNA fragmentations were determined in post-thawed samples. RESULTS: Freezing rate-I provided significantly higher fertilization and eyeing rates compared to freezing rate-II (p<0.05). Higher post-thaw motility (62.8±1.4%) and fertilization (75.2±0.9%) rates were obtained with the 0.4 mM boron concentration at freezing rate-I. CONCLUSION: Supplementation of the extender with boron increased fertilization and eyeing rates and also decreased DNA damages at both freezing rates.
ABSTRACT
It is usually assumed that after Galen there was nothing new until the Renaissance. Contrary to this view, there were significant modifications of the inherited legacy in Late Antiquity, followed by fundamental changes within the Arabic/Islamic world. Their formative influence extends from the medieval period of transmission to the Renaissance and the 17th century. The increasing emphasis on the primacy of the brain initiated the beginnings of ventricular localization of function in Late Antiquity, which was subsequently developed into a theory and transmitted to the West via Arabic. Following the unprecedented translation movement in 9th-century Baghdad, the cumulative Greek and Hellenistic knowledge of the brain, nerves, and the senses from diverse sources were brought together in the systematic, logically unified Arabic medical compendia of encyclopedic proportions, which embody divergence from accepted views and new diagnostic observations. Their Latin versions became standard texts in medical schools. The oldest extant schematic diagrams relevant to neurology (the eye, the ventricles, the visual system, and the nerves) date from this period, and served as models for the medieval Latin West. The development of coherent descriptions of the motor and sensory systems, and related clinical disorders, by analogy with the mechanisms of hydraulic automata, foreshadows some of the explanatory methods associated with the 17th century. Furthermore, an entirely new approach resulted in a paradigm shift in theory and methodology through the experimental studies on the physics of light and vision of Ibn al-Haytham (d. 1040), who showed that what is sensed is not the object itself, but a punctate optical "image" due to light reflected from its surface to the eye. This revolutionary approach to vision destroyed the viability of the Greek tradition of holistic forms and tactile sensory impressions. Ibn al-Haytham's theory of point-to-point correspondence formed the basis of subsequent attempts to find a topological representation of external objects in the eye (the retinal surface with Kepler) and in the brain (the pineal gland with Descartes and ultimately in the cortex with Munk). His serial re-projection of the punctate image in the eye, chiasma, and the brain can be regarded as dramatic precursors of the principles in neurology of hierarchical anatomical organization of sensory information from simple to complex. Due to Ibn al-Haytham, an understanding of vision increasingly required a synthesis of anatomy with the physics of light. Subsequently the visual enquiry shifted from the global question of "how do we perceive the external world by the sense of sight?" to specific concerns arising from the implications of Ibn al-Haytham's "optical" image in the eye: (a) the preservation of a point-to-point correspondence between object and image; (b) image inversion and the veridical (upright) perception of the object; (c) the unity of perception, or the binocular fusion of the two separate images, one from each eye; and (d) the anatomical projection of the retinal maps to various brain centers. The fact that these became central issues extending to Descartes and beyond underscores the unique legacy in neurology of Ibn al-Haytham's conception of a punctate sensory map, which was re-projected to the brain for complex sensory functions.