Dioscorides on Pharmacy and Medicine

Dioscorides on Pharmacy and Medicine PDF Author: John M. Riddle
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292729847
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
For 1,600 years Dioscorides (ca. AD 40–80) was regarded as the foremost authority on drugs. He knew mild laxatives and strong purgatives, analgesics for headaches, antiseptics for wounds, emetics to rid one of ingested poisons, chemotherapy agents for cancer treatments, and even oral contraceptives. Why, then, have his works remained obscure in recent centuries? Because of one small oversight (Dioscorides himself thought it was self-evident): he failed to describe his method for organizing drugs by their affinities. This omission led medical authorities to use his materials as a guide to pharmacy while overlooking Dioscorides' most valuable contribution—his empirically derived method for observing and classifying drugs by clinical testing. Dioscorides' De materia medica, a five-volume work, was written in the first century. Here revealed for the first time is the thesis that Dioscorides wrote more than a lengthy guide book. He wrote a great work of science. He had said that he discovered the natural order and would demonstrate it by his arrangement of drugs from plants, minerals, and animals. Until John M. Riddle's pathfinding study, no one saw the genius of his system. Botanists from the eighteenth century often attempted to find his unexplained method by identifying the sequences of his plants according to the Linnean system but, while there are certain patterns, there remained inexplicable incoherencies. However, Dioscorides' natural order as set down in De materia medica was determined by drug affinities as detected by his acute, clinical ability to observe drug reactions in and on the body. So remarkable was his ability to see relationships that, in some cases, he saw what we know to be common chemicals shared by plants of the same and related species and other natural product drugs from animal and mineral sources. Western European and Islamic medicine considered Dioscorides the foremost authority on drugs, just as Hippocrates is regarded as the Father of Medicine. They saw him point the way but only described the end of his finger, despite the fact that in the sixteenth century alone there were over one hundred books published on him. If he had explained what he thought to be self-evident, then science, especially chemistry and medicine, would almost certainly have developed differently. In this culmination of over twenty years of research, Riddle employs modern science and anthropological studies innovatively and cautiously to demonstrate the substance to Dioscorides' authority in medicine.

Dioscorides on Pharmacy and Medicine

Dioscorides on Pharmacy and Medicine PDF Author: John M. Riddle
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292729847
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 329

Get Book Here

Book Description
For 1,600 years Dioscorides (ca. AD 40–80) was regarded as the foremost authority on drugs. He knew mild laxatives and strong purgatives, analgesics for headaches, antiseptics for wounds, emetics to rid one of ingested poisons, chemotherapy agents for cancer treatments, and even oral contraceptives. Why, then, have his works remained obscure in recent centuries? Because of one small oversight (Dioscorides himself thought it was self-evident): he failed to describe his method for organizing drugs by their affinities. This omission led medical authorities to use his materials as a guide to pharmacy while overlooking Dioscorides' most valuable contribution—his empirically derived method for observing and classifying drugs by clinical testing. Dioscorides' De materia medica, a five-volume work, was written in the first century. Here revealed for the first time is the thesis that Dioscorides wrote more than a lengthy guide book. He wrote a great work of science. He had said that he discovered the natural order and would demonstrate it by his arrangement of drugs from plants, minerals, and animals. Until John M. Riddle's pathfinding study, no one saw the genius of his system. Botanists from the eighteenth century often attempted to find his unexplained method by identifying the sequences of his plants according to the Linnean system but, while there are certain patterns, there remained inexplicable incoherencies. However, Dioscorides' natural order as set down in De materia medica was determined by drug affinities as detected by his acute, clinical ability to observe drug reactions in and on the body. So remarkable was his ability to see relationships that, in some cases, he saw what we know to be common chemicals shared by plants of the same and related species and other natural product drugs from animal and mineral sources. Western European and Islamic medicine considered Dioscorides the foremost authority on drugs, just as Hippocrates is regarded as the Father of Medicine. They saw him point the way but only described the end of his finger, despite the fact that in the sixteenth century alone there were over one hundred books published on him. If he had explained what he thought to be self-evident, then science, especially chemistry and medicine, would almost certainly have developed differently. In this culmination of over twenty years of research, Riddle employs modern science and anthropological studies innovatively and cautiously to demonstrate the substance to Dioscorides' authority in medicine.

A Manual of Materia Medica and Therapeutics

A Manual of Materia Medica and Therapeutics PDF Author: John Forbes Royle
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Chemotherapy
Languages : en
Pages : 830

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Book Description


Kremers and Urdang's History of Pharmacy

Kremers and Urdang's History of Pharmacy PDF Author: Edward Kremers
Publisher: Amer. Inst. History of Pharmacy
ISBN: 9780931292170
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 596

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Book Description


Compound Remedies

Compound Remedies PDF Author: Paula S. DeVos
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 0822987945
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
Compound Remedies examines the equipment, books, and remedies of colonial Mexico City’s Herrera pharmacy—natural substances with known healing powers that formed part of the basis for modern-day healing traditions and home remedies in Mexico. Paula S. De Vos traces the evolution of the Galenic pharmaceutical tradition from its foundations in ancient Greece to the physician-philosophers of medieval Islamic empires and the Latin West and eventually through the Spanish Empire to Mexico, offering a global history of the transmission of these materials, knowledges, and techniques. Her detailed inventory of the Herrera pharmacy reveals the many layers of this tradition and how it developed over centuries, providing new perspectives and insight into the development of Western science and medicine: its varied origins, its engagement with and inclusion of multiple knowledge traditions, the ways in which these traditions moved and circulated in relation to imperialism, and its long-term continuities and dramatic transformations. De Vos ultimately reveals the great significance of pharmacy, and of artisanal pursuits more generally, as a cornerstone of ancient, medieval, and early modern epistemologies and philosophies of nature.

Veterinary Pharmacology and Toxicology

Veterinary Pharmacology and Toxicology PDF Author: Yves Ruckebusch
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9400966040
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 826

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Book Description


Know Your Remedies

Know Your Remedies PDF Author: He Bian
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691200130
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
"Traditional Chinese medicine has been practiced in various forms for more than a thousand years. Practitioners may heal patients with herbal remedies, acupuncture, massage, exercise, and modified diets. Even today, herbal medicines are of particular importance; Chinese pharmacies containing a vast array of remedies can be found in cities and towns the world over. This book is an interdisciplinary and cultural history of the concept of "pharmacy," both the drugs themselves and the trade in medicine, during the Ming and Qing dynasties of early modern China. This was a time of change for traditional Chinese medicine and for Chinese science as a whole. Many historians have argued that sixteenth-century China was a high point of scientific inquiry, followed by a period of intellectual decline. Though political and intellectual shifts led to a crisis of authority over pharmaceutical knowledge in the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries, Bian argues that this period of supposed intellectual decline was in fact characterized by numerous efforts to further refine and spread the pharmacological knowledge amassed in the Ming dynasty. She draws on a wide range of primary sources, but particularly through the study of bencao (pronounced "pen ts'ao"), a genre of encyclopaedic works, often called matteria medica or pharmacopoeia in the West, that collect information on medicinal substances. As the early modern Chinese Empire expanded and print culture became more widespread, the pursuit of medical remedies became a significant commercial enterprise. The author connects theory and practice of pharmacy during the Ming and Qing dynasties to broader developments in intellectual history, book culture, commerce, and taxation"--

The New Materia Medica

The New Materia Medica PDF Author: Colin Griffith
Publisher: Watkins Media Limited
ISBN: 1780284705
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 549

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Book Description
The New Materia Medica is a source book of information on some of the most exciting new crystal, botanical, and animal remedies now in use by practitioners of the Guild of Homeopaths. These remedies, proven through the practice of meditation and with a reputation for remarkable success, are extraordinary for their depth of action, reaching far into a patient’s psyche and history. Each entry gives a description of the original substance in its natural state and an outline of its medicinal and traditional uses, along with crystal essence cures where applicable and explanations of the remedies’ affinities for the chakras and the associated glands and organs. All the remedies also include detailed information on their mental, emotional, and physical effects on the individual parts of the body. Summarized case notes show clinical evidence of efficacy of these therapies and illustrate their day-to-day use.

Chinese Herbal Medicine

Chinese Herbal Medicine PDF Author: Dan Bensky
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780939616152
Category : Materia medica
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description


The World of Pharmacy and Pharmacists in Mamlūk Cairo

The World of Pharmacy and Pharmacists in Mamlūk Cairo PDF Author: Leigh Chipman
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004176063
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
This is the first detailed analysis of an immensely popular 13th c. Arabic guide for pharmacists, from a time in which Jewish physicians and pharmacists worked alongside Muslim and Christian practioners. "Minh j al-dukk n" ("How to manage a pharmacy"), by Ab l-Mun al-K h n al- A r (fl. 1260) is the first attempt to explore the full spectrum of pharmacy in the medieval Arabic world: identification of the materia medica and methods of preparation; pharmacy's place within the sciences and particularly its relationship with medicine; the social position of the pharmacist and his role in the marketplace and the hospital; the economics of pharmacy; legal aspects of pharmacy; and the image of the pharmacist in literature and drama. The result is a full and nuanced picture of a section of society usually invisible.

Civil War Pharmacy

Civil War Pharmacy PDF Author: Michael Flannery
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 9780789015020
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
Examine a previously unexplored aspect of Civil War military medicine! Here is the first comprehensive examination of pharmaceutical practice and drug provision during the Civil War. While numerous books have recounted the history of medicine in the Civil War, little has been said about the drugs that were used, the people who provided and prepared them, and how they were supplied. This is the first book to provide detailed discussion of the role of pharmacy. Among the topics covered in this essential volume are the duties of medical purveyors, the role of the hospital steward, and the nature and state of medical substances commonly used in the 1860s. This last subject would become a matter of considerable controversy and ultimately cost William Hammond, the brilliant and innovative Surgeon General, his career in the Union Army. This richly detailed book shows why the South found drug provision especially difficult and describes the valiant efforts of Confederate sympathizers to run the Union blockade in order to smuggle in their precious cargoes. You’ll also learn about the scurrilous privateers who were out to make a personal fortune at the expense of both the Union and the Confederacy. In addition, Civil War Pharmacy illuminates the systematic effort of pharmacists, physicians, and botanists to derive from Southern plants adequate substitutes for foreign substances that were difficult, if not impossible, to obtain in the Confederacy. In this painstakingly researched yet highly readable book, Michael A. Flannery, co-author of the critically acclaimed America’s Botanico-Medical Movements: Vox Populi, examines all these topics and more. In addition, he assesses the relative successes and failures of the pharmaceutical aspect of health care at the time—successes and failures that affected every man in army camps and in the field. Civil War Pharmacy: A History of Drugs, Drug Supply and Provision, and Therapeutics for the Union and Confederacy includes photographs, helpful tables and figures, and six appendices that make hard-to-find information easy to access and understand. You’ll find: the Standard Supply Table of Indigenous Remedies (1863) Circular No. 6 from the Surgeon General’s Office (May 4, 1863), calling for the removal of calomel and tartar emetic from the Supply Table instructions on reading and filling a 19th century prescription—with a glossary of Latin phrases and approximate measures, an excerpt from The Hospital Steward’s Manual, and more! a circular from the Confederate Medical Purveyor’s Office a Materia Medica for the South: A list of medicinal substances from Porcher’s Resources of the Southern Fields and Forests common prescriptions of the Civil War period as well as basic syrups of the era with monographs on their principal substances: alcohol, cinchona, hydrargyrum (mercury), opium, and quinine Packed with more information than can be listed here and, just as importantly, presented in a reader-friendly manner, this is a book that no one interested in Civil War history—or pharmacy history—should be without!