Kirtas system

Foremost it is critical to move the historic herbal text into an electronic format. This process can be very time consuming [28] however, it is essential for two reasons. First, these historic texts are rare and having them in an electronic format facilitates increased access for the collaborating groups. Second, the volume of information is difficult to handle when the data are not in an electronic format. We have recently employed the Kirtas system (Fig. 4.5) to move a number of texts into electronic format. We have yet to formally address the precision of the scanned-in documents however. 

Incorporating the Kirtas system with the International Plant Names Index and SNOW-MED allows movement of the historic text into an electronic format, identihcation of current plant names, and identihcation of the symptoms treated with the plants. To complete the mining of historic herbal texts for novel drug leads we use the Natural Products Alert (NAPRALERT ) database to compare the information extracted from the historic herbal text to the reports of plant use in the current literature. The NAPRALERT database provides a summary of plants ethnopharmacological use, biochemical activities, and isolated compounds [27]. By querying each plant (with the current plant name) it is possible to identify any reports in the current literature regarding the plant. As an example, Table 4.1 shows the NAPRALERT output for Cycas rumphii. 

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