BACKGROUND: Patients with chronic heart failure may suffer from severe thirst, even if mechanisms that cause thirst in subjects affected by this condition are not clear. Medical and non-medical authors may have already recognized this symptom during the classical age. METHODS: We analyzed association between thirst and dropsy (an ancient medical term used to indicate different conditions including chronic heart failure) in past medical and non-medical literature. RESULTS: Hippocrates and Celsus first recognized thirst as a symptom of dropsy in the classical age. Greco-Roman intellectuals (Polybius, Ovid, Horace) and theologians belonging to the first years of the Christian era (Augustine, Caesarius, Gregory I) showed to know that dropsy people were often thirsty. These authors also influenced medieval poets and writers, including Dante Alighieri. In the Renaissance, the physician and alchemist Paracelsus again evidenced this symptom and the iatrochemist Robert Fludd tried to explain pathophysiology of dropsy, basing on thirst. CONCLUSIONS: The relationship between thirst and dropsy was well known by physicians and intellectuals in the classical age and in the first years of the Christian era, so influencing the Renaissance physicians.
Edema/history , Heart Failure/history , Medical Illustration/history , Medicine in Literature/history , Thirst , Chronic Disease , Edema/diagnosis , Heart Failure/diagnosis , History, 15th Century , History, 16th Century , History, Ancient , History, Medieval , Humans
The extracts of the aerial parts and tubers of Asphodelus microcarpus (Liliacee) were studied. The fatty acids, the sugars and some anthraquinone glycosides were determined by means of GC/FTIR, GC/MS and HPLC. The antimicrobial activity of essential oil of aerial parts against blastomycetes, Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria was evaluated.
Anti-Bacterial Agents/pharmacology , Plants, Medicinal/chemistry , Microbial Sensitivity Tests , Plant Extracts/pharmacology
