Ethnopharmacology investigations classically involved traditional healers, botanists, anthropologists, chemists and pharmacologists. The role of some groups of researchers but not of physician has been highlighted and well defined in ethnopharmacological investigations. Historical data shows that discovery of several important modern drugs of herbal origin owe to the medical knowledge and clini...

CONTEXT Functional dyspepsia (FD) is a functional gastro-intestinal disorder with high prevalence. Among various treatment options, treatment by complementary and alternative medicines especially herbal remedies also practiced. Traditional Iranian medicine (TIM), a valuable resource of valid applied studies of ancient Iranian scholars, recommends numerous medicinal plants to treat dyspepsia sym...

The project of modernising Western herbal medicine in order to allow it to be accepted by the public and to contribute to contemporary healthcare is now over two decades old. One aspect of this project involves changes to the ways knowledge about medicinal plants is presented. This paper contrasts the models of Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) and Traditional Knowledge (TK) to illuminate some of t...

The search for new pharmaceuticals from naturally occurring biological materials has been guided by ethnobiological data. The investigation of folk medicine is a valuable tool in bioprospecting for pharmaceutical compounds (Costa-Neto 2002), and natural product drug development is key to the pharmaceutical industry. Over the past decade, research on medicinal plants has increasingly used histor...

Drinking or local application of human or animal urine for medicinal purposes has been practiced all over the world for millennia. Documented prescriptions in Europe originate from ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome. While many of the advances of antique medicine were forgotten after the fall of the Roman Empire, the use of urine and other excrements enjoyed continued popularity in mediaeval times....

Tinospora cordifolia (Guduchi or Amrita) is an important drug of Ayurvedic System of Medicine and found mention in various classical texts for the treatment of diseases such as jaundice, fever, diabetes and skin disease etc. In present times, this drug has been subjected for numerous chemicals, pharmacological, pre-clinical and clinical investigations and many new therapeutic applications have ...

context functional dyspepsia (fd) is a functional gastro-intestinal disorder with high prevalence. among various treatment options, treatment by complementary and alternative medicines especially herbal remedies also practiced. traditional iranian medicine (tim), a valuable resource of valid applied studies of ancient iranian scholars, recommends numerous medicinal plants to treat dyspepsia sym...

This explosion in historical interest is firmly rooted in the present. Reasons for this interest include: a wider vogue in historical publishing towards single product histories (cod, salt, opium, etc.); advocates of medicinal cannabis research and the hemp industry seeking historical legitimacy and lineage; cannabis use among the middle-aged (the core audience for history of any kind); cannabi...

Research in Ayurveda for lead structures has continued to be an area of major scientific interest with investigators engaged in drug development. The exhaustive information available in Ayurvedic literature provides a drug researcher the opportunity to start with a well tested and safe botanical material. However, an inappropriate interpretation of Ayurvedic texts can lead to research in a wron...