Amazonian useful plants described in the book "Le Pays des Amazones" (1885) of the Brazilian propagandist Baron de Santa-Anna Nery: a historical and ethnobotanical perspective.

BACKGROUND: Frederico José de Santa-Anna Nery (1848-1901) was a Brazilian Baron who referred to himself as a "volunteer propagandist" for Brazil in Europe, serving as an immigration agent to publicize the living conditions in the Amazon region, advocating for its development and modernization at the end of the nineteenth century. Santa-Anna Nery's most famous book is "Le Pays des Amazones" (The Lands of the Amazons), first published in 1885, which the author dedicated a chapter to introduce and report on the Amazonian useful plant species and its relationship with humans. The aim of this work is to understand the historical context and ethnobotanical value of the plant species in the Brazilian Amazon at the end of the nineteenth century through an analysis of the book "Le Pays des Amazones" (1885) by Baron de Santa-Anna Nery, as well as to bring to light the historical importance of this very influential propagandist, who has been forgotten nowadays. METHODS: The original book "Le Pays des Amazones" (1885), as well as the original 3rd edition and its translated version into Portuguese, was carefully analyzed and all information about plants was systematized, with botanical names being updated. Finally, using the scientific name of medicinal plants alone or in combination with their traditional use, a search was carried out in databases in order to indicate current pharmacological studies that provide evidence about the described traditional uses. RESULTS: A total of 156 plant species were identified in the book, although 132 species had their scientific names updated. These species belong to 45 different families, with Fabaceae and Arecaceae the most represented, and 109 plants are Brazilian native. Considering only the 36 medicinal plants, the main medicinal indications reported were astringent, purgative/laxative, stimulant and tonic, vermifuge, febrifuge, sudorific, emetic, diuretic and antidysenteric. Regarding other useful plants (non-medicinal), 97 species were cited for food, constructions and buildings, spices and condiments, ornaments and objects, carpentry, textile fibers, gums, oils, balms and essences, pigments and tanning, hunting and fishing. CONCLUSIONS: When the book "Le Pays des Amazones" is analyzed from a timeless perspective, with a particular focus on historical ethnobotany, it is possible to observe the economic, social, and political importance of many useful plants for the Amazon at the end of the nineteenth century and how the relationship between local people, indigenous communities, and immigrants was established with plant biodiversity.

A systematic methodology to assess the identity of plants in historical texts: A case study based on the Byzantine pharmacy text John the Physician's Therapeutics.

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: In recent decades, the study of historical texts has attracted research interest, particularly in ethnopharmacology. All studies of the materia medica cited in ancient and medieval texts share a concern, however, as to the reliability of modern identifications of these substances. Previous studies of European or Mediterranean texts relied mostly on authoritative dictionaries or glossaries providing botanical identities for the historical plant names in question. Several identities they suggest, however, are questionable and real possibility of error exists. AIM OF THE STUDY: This study aims to develop and document a novel and interdisciplinary methodology providing more objective assessment of the identity of the plants (and minerals) described in these resources. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We developed an iterative experimental approach, using the 13th century Byzantine recipe text John the Physician's Therapeutics in its Commentary version (JC) as a case study. The methodology has six stages and relies on comparative analyses including statistical evaluation of botanical descriptions and information about medicinal uses drawn from both historical and modern sources. Stages 1-4 create the dataset, stage 5 derives the primary outcomes to be reviewed by experts in stage 6. RESULTS: Using Disocorides' De Materia Medica (DMM) (1st century CE) as the culturally related reference text for the botanical descriptions of the plants cited in JC, allowed us to link the 194 plants used medicinally in JC with 252 plants cited in DMM. Our test sample for subsequent analyses consisted of the 50 JC plant names (corresponding to 61 DMM plants) for which DMM holds rich morphological information, and the 130 candidate species which have been suggested in the literature as potential botanical identities of those 50 JC plant names. Statistical evaluation of the comparative analyses revealed that in the majority of the cases, our method detected the candidate species having a higher likelihood of being the correct attribution from among the pool of suggested candidates. Final assessment and revision provided a list of the challenges associated with applying our methodology more widely and recommendations on how to address these issues. CONCLUSIONS: We offer this multidisciplinary approach to more evidence-based assessment of the identity of plants in historical texts providing a measure of confidence for each suggested identity. Despite the experimental nature of our methodology and its limitations, its application allowed us to draw conclusions about the validity of suggested candidate plants as well as to distinguish between alternative candidates of the same historical plant name. Fully documenting the methodology facilitates its application to historical texts of any kind of cultural or linguistic background.

Female naturalists and the patterns of suppression of women scientists in history: the example of Maria Sibylla Merian and her contributions about useful plants.

BACKGROUND: This work reunites many women naturalists who registered knowledge about native flora in scientific expeditions around the globe between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. Since male naturalists are more recognized in this period of time, we aimed to list female naturalists that published plant descriptions and observations, focusing on the work of Maria Sibylla Merian and to analyze her trajectory as an example to discuss the patterns of the suppression of women scientists. A second aim was to inventory the useful plants described in Maria Sibylla's Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium and find pharmacological evidence about the traditional uses described for those plants cited as medicinal and toxic. METHODS: A survey of female naturalists was carried out by searching information in Pubmed, Scielo, Google Scholar and Virtual Health Library. Once Maria Sibylla published her book Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium by her own, without male co-authors, and also this book is one of the only to have text and illustrations altogether and there are reports indicating information on useful plants in this work, she and her book were chosen as subject of this research. All the information was tabulated by dividing the plants into food, medicinal, toxic, aromatic or other uses. Finally, with the combinations of the scientific name of medicinal and toxic plants with information about their popular uses, a search was carried out in databases in order to indicate current pharmacological studies that reported evidences about the traditional uses described. RESULTS: We found 28 women naturalists who participated in scientific expeditions or trips, or in a curiosity cabinet, or who were collectors of Natural History between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. All these women illustrated botanical species and/or recorded their everyday or medicinal use or reported their observations in the form of a published work, letters or diaries. Also, the trajectory of Maria Sibylla Merian revealed that her scientific relevance has been neglected from the eighteenth century by mechanisms of suppression, most of the time by male depreciation, which can be seen as a pattern for suppression of women in science. However, Maria Sibyllas' contributions have been valued again in the twenty-first century. In Maria Sibylla's work, 54 plants were identified, 26 of them used for food, 4 of them aromatic, 8 medicinal, 4 toxic and 9 other uses. CONCLUSION: This study evidences that there are female naturalists whose work could be an important source for ethnopharmacological studies. Researching about women scientists, talking about them and highlighting the gender bias present in the scientific academy about the way the history of science is told is essential for the construction of a more diverse and richer scientific academy. The traditional use of 7 of 8 medicinal plants and 3 of 4 toxic plants reported was correlated with pharmacological studies, highlighting the importance of this historical record and its potential to direct strategic research in traditional medicine.

Overview of Dioscorides' recipes in Croatian books of folk recipes.

The aim of this paper is to present an overview of Dioscorides' recipes from his work De materia medica which are found in Croatian folk medicine preserved in books of folk recipes called ljekaruse. The particularities of five published and analysed Croatian books of folk recipes from the 17 th and 18 th century are examined. Recipes with drugs of herbal and animal origin, which are most often mentioned in Croatian books of folk recipes, and which were available in folk medicine at the time, are compared with those from Dioscorides' work. Many herbal drugs described in books of folk recipes are today used in contemporary phytotherapy, and modern biomedical research reveals new bioactive substances and confirms new and potential biological activities in medicinal plants used in folk medicine, which is the basis for further study of De materia medica by Dioscorides and ethnomedicinal collections. Croatian books of folk recipes are a valuable resource for multidisciplinary study, including for medicinal and pharmaceutical historians, philologists and ethnologists.

Ca' Granda, Hortus simplicium: Restoring an Ancient Medicinal Garden of XV-XIX Century in Milan (Italy).

This work is based on the study of 150 majolica vases dated back to the mid XVII century that once preserved medicinal remedies prepared in the ancient Pharmacy annexed to the Ospedale Maggiore Ca' Granda in Milan (Lombardy, Italy). The Hortus simplicium was created in 1641 as a source of plant-based ingredients for those remedies. The main objective of the present work is to lay the knowledge base for the restoration of the ancient Garden for educational and informative purposes. Therefore, the following complementary phases were carried out: (i) the analysis of the inscriptions on the jars, along with the survey on historical medical texts, allowing for the positive identification of the plant ingredients of the remedies and their ancient use as medicines; (ii) the bibliographic research in modern pharmacological literature in order to validate or refute the historical uses; (iii) the realization of the checklist of plants potentially present in cultivation at the ancient Garden, concurrently with the comparison with the results of a previous in situ archaeobotanical study concerning pollen grains. For the species selection, considerations were made also regarding drug amounts in the remedies and pedoclimatic conditions of the study area. Out of the 150 vases, 108 contained plant-based remedies, corresponding to 148 taxa. The remedies mainly treated gastrointestinal and respiratory disorders. At least one of the medicinal uses was validated in scientific literature for 112 out of the 148 examined species. Finally, a checklist of 40 taxa, presumably hosted in the Hortus simplicium, was assembled.

Plant Adaptogens-History and Future Perspectives.

Adaptogens are synthetic compounds (bromantane, levamisole, aphobazole, bemethyl, etc.) or plant extracts that have the ability to enhance the body's stability against physical loads without increasing oxygen consumption. Extracts from Panax ginseng, Eleutherococcus senticosus, Rhaponticum carthamoides, Rhodiola rosea, and Schisandra chinensis are considered to be naturally occurring adaptogens and, in particular, plant adaptogens. The aim of this study is to evaluate the use of plant adaptogens in the past and now, as well as to outline the prospects of their future applications. The use of natural adaptogens by humans has a rich history-they are used in recovery from illness, physical weakness, memory impairment, and other conditions. About 50 years ago, plant adaptogens were first used in professional sports due to their high potential to increase the body's resistance to stress and to improve physical endurance. Although now many people take plant adaptogens, the clinical trials on human are limited. The data from the meta-analysis showed that plant adaptogens could provide a number of benefits in the treatment of chronic fatigue, cognitive impairment, and immune protection. In the future, there is great potential to register medicinal products that contain plant adaptogens for therapeutic purposes.

Medicine and Healing in the Pre-Socratic Thought - A Brief Analysis of Magic and Rationalism in Ancient Herbal Therapy.

BACKGROUND: Medicine has gone through many schools of thought before arriving in the version we see in our world today. In the beginning, it was based on religion, superstition, and magic plants for therapy. This approach was practiced for many centuries until a period of cultural development arrived. This change occurred in the ancient Greek era, when new theories on nature arose: physiokratia emerged to describe the nature of humanity, including its genesis and supporting phenomena. From the various mystical traditions, we have come to understand the natural phenomena that surround the universe, thanks to the knowledge of the "hidden causes" that emerged due to this trend of philosophical thought. METHODS: We studied ancient texts to determine the common roots between myth, therapy, and religion of medical cultures in the pre-Hippocratic era and the era of pre-Socratic philosophers. RESULTS: This study is focused on the period of time before and during pre-Socratic thought, showing that there are many similarities in the approach of therapy for various diseases in that era. The Greek contribution to Western medicine was in the development of a rational system of thought that has been transmitted in medical culture. This attempt to interpret humanity was called philosophy. Hippocrates, who came after the pre-Socratics, changed the old approach to patients. When the approach to medical diagnosis and healing changed, it affected the therapy of other ancient cultures. The ancient Greeks were influenced by other civilizations' approaches to therapy, especially with the use of plants and the different mythological and religious outlooks connected to this use. Despite the emergence of pre- Socratic rationalism, supernatural beliefs remained even when the use of herbs was no longer practiced in direct connection to their origins in myth and magic. The first detachment of magic therapy occurred later with the father of medicine, Hippocrates. CONCLUSION: The ancient Greeks invented the rationalist doctrine, which influenced medicine. Thus, the birth of philosophy, through its many stages, has influenced therapeutic patterns in medicine, especially with medicinal herbs.

Analysis of historical changes in traditional Chinese medicine based on an Indonesian collection of Chinese materia medica from c. 1870.

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: Traditional Chinese Medicine is subject to changes over time: product names, botanical ingredients, processing methods and uses have varied throughout the course of history. Historic collections of Chinese materia medica (CMM) are of great value for research on the evolvement, development and variability of Chinese herbal medicine over time. These changes may have a significant influence on the safety and efficiency of nowadays' clinical practice. Here we investigate a historic collection of Chinese medicinal products purchased in Indonesia in c. 1870, containing about 395 specimens. AIM OF THE STUDY: This study compares the specimens contained in late 19th century collection of CMM with contemporary marketed materials by investigating changes in vernacular names, botanical identity and processing methods which are important aspects for safety and clinical practice today. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The contents and associated documentation of the CMM collection of Dr. C.H.A. Westhoff (University Museum Utrecht) were revised by means of morphological identification and study of the associated historic documentation. We compared this Westhoff collection with contemporary CMM, information from literature and various quality standards, including the official Chinese pharmacopoeia. RESULTS: The Westhoff collection represents a unique, well preserved collection of Chinese materia medica, with original uniform bottles, Chinese labels and a partly intact handwritten catalogue. Among the 395 specimens (bottles) of CMM surveyed, there are 387 contain a single component drug, while eight contain multiple components drugs. A total of 293 of the 395 specimens are mentioned in the modern Chinese pharmacopoeia. Ca. 25% of the specimens had been processed, such as stir-fried with or without adjuvants. Our analysis of local Chinese names, botanical content and processing methods indicate that this collection originates from southern part of China, possibly including in the region of Taiwan and was meant as a showcase for pharmaceutical education and/or as curiosity object. CONCLUSION: Differences in vernacular names, plant parts and processing methods between the Westhoff collection and the current Chinese pharmacopoeia illustrate the regional variety of CMM and changes in CMM in the course of time. This work contributes to the understanding of the evolvement of CMM from a historic perspective.

Geopolitics of bitterness: Deciphering the history and cultural biogeography of Quassia amara L.

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: Quassia amara L. recently came into the spotlight in French Guiana, when it became the object of a biopiracy claim. Due to the numerous use records throughout the Guiana shield, at least since the 18th century, a thorough investigation of its origin seemed relevant and timely. In the light of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Nagoya protocol, questions about the origin of local knowledge are important to debate. AIM OF THE STUDY: Defining cultural biogeography as the dynamics through space and time of biocultural complexes, we used this theoretical framework to shed light on the complex biogeographical and cultural history of Q. amara. We explored in particular the possible transfer of medicinal knowledge on an Old World species to a botanically related New World one by enslaved Africans in Suriname. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Historical and contemporary literature research was performed by means of digitized manuscripts, archives and databases from the 17th to the 21st century. We retrieved data from digitized herbarium vouchers in herbaria of the Botanic Garden Meise (Belgium); Naturalis Biodiversity Center (the Netherlands); Missouri Botanical Garden, the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, the Field Museum (USA); Royal Botanic Gardens Kew (UK); the IRD Herbarium, French Guiana and the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle (France). Vernacular names were retrieved from literature and herbarium specimens and compared to verify the origin of Quassia amara and its uses. RESULTS: Our exploration of digitized herbarium vouchers resulted in 1287 records, of which 661 were Q. amara and 636 were Q. africana. We observed that the destiny of this species, over at least 300 years, interweaves politics, economy, culture and medicine in a very complex way. Quassia amara's uses are difficult to attribute to specific cultural groups: the species is widely distributed in Central and South America, where it is popular among many ethnic groups. The species spread from Central to South America during the early 18th century due to political and economic reasons. This migration possibly resulted from simultaneous migration by religious orders (Jesuits) from Central America to northern South America and by Carib-speaking Amerindians (from northern South America to Suriname). Subsequently, through colonial trade networks, Q. amara spread to the rest of the world. The absence of African-derived local names in the Guiana shield suggests that Q. africana was not sufficiently familiar to enslaved Africans in the region that they preserved its names and transferred the associated medicinal knowledge to Q. amara. CONCLUSIONS: Cultural biogeography has proven an interesting concept to reconstruct the dynamics of biocultural interactions through space and time, while herbarium databases have shown to be useful to decipher evolution of local plant knowledge. Tracing the origin of a knowledge is nevertheless a complex adventure that deserves time and interdisciplinary studies.

Webpalestra: plantas medicinais e fitoterapia na APS

Palestrante: Dr. Ary Gomes da Siva Webpalestra gravada em: 14/02/2017

[Argentinian women and the uses of drugs: A sociohistorical analysis of female drug use in Argentina (1860-1930)]. / Mujeres argentinas y usos de drogas: análisis sociohistórico del uso femenino de sustancias psicoactivas en Argentina (1860-1930).

This article describes cases presented by experts from the legislative and medical-legal fields regarding the use of psychoactive substances among Argentinian women from 1878 to 1930. Background information is presented regarding the relationship between women and the use different drugs, medical interventions on the female body where psychoactive substances were used are analyzed, and experts' descriptions of cases of female drug users are detailed. Experts' discourses during this period did not attempt to comprehend the specificities of female consumption, but were rather used to position the issue of drug use as a social problem. This was done using three prototypes: the victim of a sick husband; the prostitute who encourages drug use among the weak in spirit (natural-born criminals); and the virtuous young woman who succumbs to drug addiction in spite of her father's rule. Each figure reinforces the need for state intervention and increased social control.

Este trabajo describe casos expuestos por expertos de los ámbitos legislativo y médico-legal periodístico, en los que se reporta el consumo de sustancias psicoactivas por parte de mujeres de Argentina, entre 1878 y 1930. Se presentan antecedentes sobre mujeres y usos de distintos fármacos, se analizan las intervenciones médicas que utilizan sustancias psicoactivas sobre el cuerpo femenino, y se detallan los casos de mujeres consumidoras desde las miradas expertas. En este periodo, los discursos expertos no buscaron comprender la especificidad femenina del consumo, sino promover el tema drogas como un problema. Esto se produce utilizando tres prototipos: la víctima de un marido enfermo, la prostituta que envicia a los débiles de espíritu (criminal nata), y la joven virtuosa que contraviene la ley del padre y sucumbe en la toxicomanía. Cada figura refuerza la necesidad de intervención estatal y control social.

Marcgrave and Piso's plants for sale: The presence of plant species and names from the Historia Naturalis Brasiliae (1648) in contemporary Brazilian markets.

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: Parallelisms between current and historical medicinal practices as described in the seventeenth century treatise Historia Naturalis Brasiliae (HNB) provide us with an overview of traditional plant knowledge transformations. Local markets reflect the actual plant use in urban and rural surroundings, allowing us to trace cross-century similarities of ethnobotanical knowledge. AIMS OF THE STUDY: We aim to verify in how far the HNB, created in seventeenth-century northeastern Brazil, correlates with contemporary plant use in the country by comparing the plant knowledge therein with recent plant market surveys at national level. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We conducted a literature review on ethnobotanical market surveys in Brazil. We used the retrieved data on plant composition and vernacular names, together with our own fieldwork from the Ver-o-Peso market in Belém, to compare each market repertoire with the useful species in the HNB. We analyzed similarities among markets and the HNB with a Detrended Correspondence Analysis and by creating Venn diagrams. We analyzed the methods of the different markets to check whether they influenced our results. RESULTS: Out of the 24 markets reviewed, the greatest similarities with the HNB are seen in northern Brazilian markets, both in plant composition and vernacular names, followed by the northeast. The least overlap is found with markets in the central west and Rio de Janeiro. Most of the shared vernacular names with the HNB belonged to languages of the Tupi linguistic family. CONCLUSION: The similarity patterns in floristic composition among Brazilian markets and the HNB indicate the current wider distribution and trade of the species that Marcgrave and Piso described in 1648 in the northeast. Migration of indigenous groups, environmental changes, globalized and homogenous plant trade, and different market survey methods played a role in these results. The HNB is a reference point in time that captures a moment of colonial cultural transformations.

Ethnoveterinary botanical medicine in South Africa: A review of research from the last decade (2009 to 2019).

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: Ethnoveterinary medicine (EVM) practices remain a common feature of South African animal husbandry, particularly in rural livestock healthcare. This review provides an update of research undertaken on South African EVM from 2009 until 2019. AIM OF THE STUDY: This review collates information and investigates trends in the increasing field of EVM research in South Africa over the last decade. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A literature search was conducted using available databases including ScienceDirect, PubMed, Scopus and Google Scholar. Dissertations, theses, books and technical reports were also searched. RESULTS: In the past decade, ethnoveterinary surveys conducted in South Africa report the use of 139 plants from 50 families used against 21 animal diseases and conditions. Leaves, roots and bark have remained popular plant parts used for EVM. In terms of livestock species reported, the major focus was on cattle, goats and poultry. Only four of the nine provinces in the country have been surveyed. CONCLUSIONS: Relatively few publications reporting on ethnoveterinary surveys have originated from South Africa. These papers refer to many plants used for a variety of commonly encountered animal diseases and afflictions. With reference to recently published guidelines on conducting ethnobotanical surveys, several recommendations can be made to improve the robustness of surveys documenting the use of plants for EVM in South Africa.

Historical ethnobotanical review of medicinal plants used to treat children diseases in Romania (1860s-1970s).

BACKGROUND: Romanian ethnopediatrics has a long history of medicinal plant use. The main objective of the present review was to identify, collect, systematize, and prioritize the available bibliographical data related to medicinal plants traditionally used to treat various pediatric diseases in Romania during the 1860s-1970s. METHODS: Information was mainly obtained by manual systematic search in various relevant historical works focused on the traditional use of medicinal plants in Romania (1860s-1970s), found in the Archives of Romanian Academy Library and National Romanian Library. RESULTS: A total of 153 medicinal plants belonging to 52 families were identified as having ethnopediatric significance. The plant traditional indications, targeted body systems, parts used, and way of administration were provided. We have also proposed one index (expressed as percentage) in order to assess the ethnopediatric applicability area of species: ethnopediatric relative therapeutic versatility (ERTV), which was calculated on the basis of the number of distinct uses mentioned for a species. The species identified to have the highest ERTV scores were Dryopteris filix-mas (100%), Gratiola officinalis (85.71%), Allium sativum (71.42%), Eryngium planum (71.42%), Juglans regia (71.42%), Matricaria chamomilla (71.42%), Plantago major (71.42%). CONCLUSIONS: The present study exposed for the first time to the international scientific community important ethnopediatric information contained in several local Romanian bibliographical resources that could guide the local and international researchers towards new directions of plant valorization.

A Review Article About Some Herbs Affecting Vitiligo Based on Avicenna's Canon.

BACKGROUND: Vitiligo is a pigmentary disorder characterizing by white macules due to loss of melanocytes. Vitiligo affects about 1 to 4% of people around the world. The treatment of vitiligo has a high cost and the long process of treatment in spite of no complete remedy. It has various psychological side-effects such as depression and anxiety affecting the quality of life seriously. Avicenna in his Canon treated these patients over a thousand years ago. This study aimed to introduce some herbal drugs in vitiligo based on the Canon of Avicenna besides the conventional medical treatments. METHODS: This is a review study, according to the Canon with the term Baras and also searching through the electronic websites with the keywords vitiligo, treatment, and herbal drugs. RESULTS: The study found some herbs affecting the vitiligo from the Canon. CONCLUSION: The researchers suggest conducting clinical trials on the patients with vitiligo based on the Canon besides the conventional techniques to obtain a better result in the treatment.

A review of the antimicrobial potential of herbal drugs used in popular Italian medicine (1850s-1950s) to treat bacterial skin diseases.

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: Before the advent of modern antibiotics, microbial infections were treated with herbal medicine or cauterization. Literature from the latter half of the nineteenth to the early mid-twentieth century, when antibiotics became widely available, arguably holds the most progressive information about herbal remedies to treat bacterial skin diseases. The corpus of literature produced in Italy during that period is not easily accessible and mostly out of print. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Plant-based remedies utilized in popular Italian medicine to treat anthrax, boils, erysipelas, impetigo, pustules, and whitlow were sourced from literature indexed in and available through the National Library Service website of the Italian Libraries Network. The remedies are assessed for their antimicrobial potential based on a detailed search of the herbal drug species in scientific databases. RESULTS: A considerable part of the reviewed recipes included specific excipients (41 out of 139) and others were produced with fresh plant material (48 out of 139). Out of the 52 identified herbal drug species used in popular Italian medicine against dermatologic infections, extracts of 43 were shown to have moderate in vitro activity against Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. CONCLUSION: The antibacterial activity of the extracts and pure compounds as reported in the reviewed literature is mostly based on in vitro assays and generally does not encourage follow up studies. The effectiveness of the reported recipes, which include fresh plant material and excipients can only be assessed through in vivo studies. Those remedies including herbal drugs with reported antimicrobial activity might have the potential as complementary therapies. The reviewed plant based antimicrobial recipes might serve as inspirations in the search for alternative topical antibacterial strategies and the search for their synergistic and potentiating ingredients.

Historical ethnopharmacology of the herbalists from Krummhübel in the Sudety Mountains (seventeenth to nineteenth century), Silesia.

BACKGROUND: Krummhübel (after 1945, Karpacz) in the Sudety Mountains (now SW Poland) was called "the village of pharmacists". At the end of the seventeenth century, there were 57 households, of which about 40 were inhabited by herbalists. Krummhübel herbalists were the first in the Sudety region who applied medicinal mixtures for the treatment of various diseases (using, among others, plants, oils, minerals and even viper venom) in contrast to previous herbalists who only indicated the use of individual plant species for specific diseases. Riesengebirge (in Polish Karkonosze) potions were sold in Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland and Russia, and some of them could even be purchased in Scandinavia and England. The purpose of this paper is an ethnopharmacological analysis of historical texts of herbalists from Krummhübel. Based on their recipes, we analysed the use reports of drugs. Recently, research on ethnobotany and ethnopharmacological analyses of historical materials or egodocuments related to formulations used in folk medicine have become an important source of acquiring knowledge about new medicines. METHODS: Based on 46 recipes of Krummhübel herbalists re-written by Reitzig (1943), we analysed the use reports of drugs which included plant taxa and other constituents such as animal formulations, fungi, inorganic and organic substances and minerals as well as tinctures (with alcohol/spirit) and elixirs (without alcohol/spirit). For each usage mentioned in the text, we recorded (i) the putative botanical identity of the taxon; (ii) the plant family or origin of other than the plant constituent; (iii) the reported plant part; (iv) the number of the recipe; (v) the name of the recipe; (vi) the vernacular name of ingredient; (vii) the described symptom, ailment or specific use; (viii) our modern (viz. biomedical) interpretation of the described symptom or ailment; (ix) the mode of administration; and (x) the category of use under which we filed the specific use. We also cross-checked the medicinal plants of Krummhübel herbalists with the species described in old manuscripts and regional surveys and compared their use with contemporary plant use. RESULTS: The paper introduces the generated database comprising 348 use reports of 46 drugs based on 70 plant taxa and other constituents. Besides, we address patterns such as the frequent recommendation of Fabaceae herbs for respiratory system issue and gynaecology and Asteraceae for respiratory system and cardiovascular problems. Gastrointestinal use reports are based on Asphodelaceae, Burseraceae and Rosaceae species. CONCLUSIONS: Remedies that lost importance over time as well as drugs used for diseases now controlled by conventional medicine may be interesting starting points for research on herbal medicine and drug discovery. It seems to be important to attempt to reproduce therapeutic mixtures from the preserved recipes of Krummhübel herbalists, which offers an opportunity to learn more about the real effects of the former medicines and their therapeutic activity. The obtained data can also be used to search for new drugs.