RESUMO
Fundada en el año 2008, la Biblioteca Histórica de la Farmacia Suiza, situada en el instituto de Historia de la Medicina de la Universidad de Berna, tiene un fondo de más de 6000 obras. Entre ellas se encuentran algunos libros que se dedican a las drogas sudamericanas. Aparte de las obras de Nicolás Monardes, también existen otras de la farmacognosia europea de finales del siglo XIX y principios del XX. Este trabajo ilustra la importancia de la transferencia de conocimientos usando la Biblioteca Histórica helvética como ejemplo
Institute houses the Historical Library of the Swiss Pharmacy, founded in 2008, for the History of Medicine of the University of Berne provides an impressive collection of more than 6000 works. Among them are some books that deal with South American drugs. Besides the famous works by Nicolás Monardes and their translations, there are also a corpus of books representing the European pharmacognosy by the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. This paper is dedicated to the transfer of scientific knowledge reflected by the works in the Helvetic historical library
Assuntos
Preparações Farmacêuticas/história , Farmácia/história , Farmacologia/história , Bibliotecas/história , SuíçaRESUMO
ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: Before modern anticonvulsive drugs were developed people in central Europe used herbal remedies to treat epilepsy. Hundreds of different plants for this indication can be found in German herbals of the 16th and 17th centuries. Here we compile these plants and discuss their use from a pharmacological perspective. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Nine of the most important European herbals of the 16th and 17th century including Bock (1577), Fuchs (1543), Mattioli (1590), Lonicerus (1660, 1770), Brunfels (1532), Zwinger (1696), and Tabernaemontanus (1591, 1678) were searched for terms related to epilepsy, and plants and recipes described for its treatment were documented. We then searched scientific literature for pharmacological evidence of their effectiveness. Additionally the overlapping of these remedies with those in De Materia Medica by the Greek physician Dioscorides was studied. RESULTS: Two hundred twenty one plants were identified in the herbals to be used in the context of epilepsy. In vitro and/or in vivo pharmacological data somehow related to the indication epilepsy was found for less than 5% of these plants. Less than 7% of epilepsy remedies are in common with De Materia Medica. CONCLUSIONS: Numerous plants were used to treat epilepsy in the 16th and 17th centuries. However, few of these plants have been investigated with respect to pharmacological activity on epilepsy related targets.
