Folk traditions

Plate 1. Ethnobotany and Background. Convolvulaceae, the botanical name for the morning glory family, derives from the Latin convolve, referring to its growth of intertwining vines (A Heavenly blue, Ipomoea tricolor). The purgative properties of the Mexican roots were readily accepted in Europe when introduced in the sixteenth century, since pre-Christian folk tradition had already proclaimed the virtues of skammonia as found in Dioscorides work De Materia Medica, ca. 50-68 a.d. 

The Mazatec name is curious. In Christian tradition the Virgin Mary is not thought of as a shepherdess. Is the "Pastora" concept a survival of the pre-Christian dueno de los animales, "the Lord of the animals," that figures large in the folk tradition of the Middle American Indians A pagan association would thus be sanctified by the addition of the Virgin s name. 

Before the advent of modern and synthetic drugs in the nineteenth century, the United States had its own folk medicine tradition. In colonial times, people often relied on homemade botanical remedies based on the folk traditions of their original countries. People also learned about the healing properties of local plants from Native Americans. 

To provide scientific support for the wide use of Aristolochia species in folk/traditional medicines, number of scientific groups world wide studied the pharmacological properties of both crude extracts and constituents of Aristolochia species. Many worthy achievements in the pharmacology of Aristolochia have been published. The aristolochic acids have been considered to be the most potent fraction of the Aristolochia constituents. Aristolochic acid I, the most active constituent of Aristolochia has been used for medicinal purposes since the Graeco-Roman period [412], The pharmacopeia of the People s Republic of China indicated that aristolo- chic acid can be used to relieve pain by subdueing hyperactivity of the liver, counteract toxicity, and cause subsidence of... 

For many years, research has essentially focused on plants and terrestrial microorganisms, mainly because these specimens are easily available and folk traditions have described beneficial effects from their use. Recently, there is an increase in the screening of potential drug candidates... 

Alcorn JB (1984) Huastec Mayan Ethnobotany. University of Texas Press, Austin Allen DE, Hatfield G (2004) Medicinal plants in folk tradition an ethnobotany of Britain and Ireland. Timber, Portland... 

Pieroni A (2000) Medicinal plants and food medicines in the folk traditions of the upper Lucca Province, Italy. J Ethnopharmacol 70 235-273... 

Sak K, Jiirisoo K, Raal A (2014) Estonian folk traditional etqteriences on natiual anticancer remedies from past to the future. Pharm Biol 52(7) 855-866 Saklani A, Jain SK (1994) Cross-cultural ethnobotany of Northeast India. Deep, New Delhi Sato M (1968) An edible lichen of Japan, Gyrophora esculenta Miyoshi. Nova Hedwigia 16 505-509... 

Traditional Medicine. In European and American folk traditions, leaf tea used as blood purifier, diuretic, astringent for anemia, gout, glandular diseases, rheumatism, poor circulation, enlarged spleen, mucous discharges of lungs, internal bleeding, and diarrhea, dysentery (foster and duke). 

The line beginning with is the route section for this job. The first line of the route section always begins with a pound sign in the first column (UNIX folks this is not a comment marker). T requests terse output from the program (only the essential results), alone requests normal (traditional) Gaussian output, and P requests more detail in the output file. 

Accidental or intentional ingestion of folk remedies containing lead (discussed in Section 5.5) represents another source for potential lead-poisoning in children. Acute lead encephalopathy in early infancy has been reported in a Middle Eastern study for 14 infants following the use of Bint al Thahab, a traditional... 

The model most often invoked to rationalize cooperative behavior is the MWC (Monod-Wyman-Changeaux), or concerted, model. This model is 1.5 times more complicated than the Michaelis-Menten model and took three people to develop instead of two. Most texts describe it in detail. In the absence of substrate, the enzyme has a low affinity for substrate. The MWC folks say that the enzyme is in a T (for tense or taut) state in the absence of substrate. Coexisting with this low-affinity T state is another conformation of the enzyme, the R (for relaxed) state, that has a higher affinity for substrate. The T and R states coexist in the absence of substrate, but there s much more of the T state than the R. This has always seemed backward, since one would expect the enzyme to be more tense in the presence of substrates when some work is actually required. In keeping with the tradition of biochemistry, the MWC folks obviously wanted this to be backward too (Fig. 8-8). 

Investigations of medicinal plants used traditionally in Greek folk medicine to treat gastric ailments, and peptic ulcer disease have been tested against HP in vitro Konstantinopoulou and coworkers demonstrated that a lipophilic extract of Anthemis altissima L. (Asteraceae) inhibited the growth of several HP strains. Several sesquiterpene lactones (Fig. 1),... 

Native to tropical America, sweet potato (I. batatas) is a perennial morning glory vine that has been cultivated for over 5,000 years for its edible tubers in Mexico, Central and lowland South America, and the West Indies. Today, sweet potato is cultivated around the world, especially in developing countries (Plate 4). A decoction made from the leaves of this plant is used in folk remedies as a gargle to treat mouth and throat tumors, and poultices are prepared for inflammatory tumors (64). In Mexico, leaf decoctions are considered to be of cold nature , to reduce excessive body heat, contemporarily defined as such illnesses as diarrhea, dysentery, heart disease, stomach distress, fever, and gastrointestinal infection. In Chinese traditional medicine, the tubers have been used as a medicinal herb to eliminate secretion in perceived abnormal quantities of blood or other body fluids (79). 

Traditionally, lead compounds have been discovered in one of two ways. The hrst is one of trial and error. This is the way many plant and animal products and minerals have been found to be effective in the treatment of some medical disorder. For example, no one knows when the hrst person learned that chewing on the bark of the willow tree [Salix alba) helped relieve pain and reduce fever, but willow bark has been used in many cultures for untold centuries for just that purpose. Today we know that the active ingredient in willow bark is a derivative of salicylic acid (CgH4(OH)COOH), which today is sold commercially as aspirin or one of its analogs. Drug researchers continue to rely heavily on the study of folk medicines—a science known as ethnopharmacology—for the discovery of new plant and animal products that may have medical applications in the modern world. Indeed, scientists have discovered that the medical... 

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