History of Medicine

As the COVID-19 vaccine rollout gains traction and we finally seem to have overcome the supply crunch, we now face a new problem- vaccine hesitancy. Although the number of Americans who are hesitant to take the vaccine has steadily been dropping as the numbers of vaccinated people rise with little or no side effects, there are still about 40% of folks who are currently against or undecided about the vaccine. Few of them are staunch anti-vaxxers who protest any vaccine but the majority of these are people who are hesitant to take it due to the uncertainty about the new vaccine. Interestingly, vaccines have always met with skepticism beginning with the very first vaccine. In 1798, when Edward Jenner introduced the small pox vaccine, it was met with strong opposition and even caricatured in the press with grotesque illustrations of deformities including cow heads growing out of vaccinated people (because the vaccine was made from cow pox). An 1802 anti-small pox vaccination caricature In

Another herbal remedy for COVID-19 is making news, this time in India. A company called Patanjali Ayurved that sells products based on ancient medicinal herbs from Ayurveda is marketing a new product called Coronil that it claims is effective against covid. The company has met with criticism in the past for overselling its products, but the company stands by its claims and claims to have clinical test data to back its claims. The Indian ministry's AYUSH section of Central Drugs Standard Control Organization has approved Coronil as a drug that can be used as “supporting measure in Covid-19” and as an immuno-booster. Coronil is the first product against covid-19 to be marketed by a prominent company and one that is based on ancient medicine. The medicine reportedly contains active compounds from three common Ayurvedic herbs, ashwagandha, giloy, and tulsi, and is touted as exhibiting high anti-viral and immunity boosting properties. The product has approval for export to 158 countries

Long before artemisinin was discovered as an effective anti-malarial agent (in the 1970s), there was another natural anti-malarial remedy that was widely used. Quinine, made from the bark of a tree holds great importance in medicine and has a fascinating history.  In the 1800s, European settlers in South America discovered that the bark of a native Peruvian tree called cinchona tree was widely used by locals to ward off mosquitos and it served as an effective anti-malarial remedy. The active ingredient, quinine, was soon isolated from the cinchona bark, and it became the mainstay of anti-malaria treatment for hundreds of years all over the world (and continues even today in certain countries).  Cinchona tree Although the discovery of quinine was a landmark for western medicine, it also had horrendous consequences, especially for the people of Africa. The fear of malaria and other diseases had kept colonial powers out of Africa for centuries, but the effectiveness of quinine against mal

The 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was won by a Chinese scientist, Tu Youyou, for her discovery of anti-malarial drug, artemisinin in the 1970s. Artemisinin is derived from the flowering plant  Artemisia annua (or sweet wormwood).  Artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) are now standard treatment for malaria worldwide, and several drugs containing artemisinin such as Artesunate are now widely available.  Artemisia plant While it was heralded as a pathbreaking discovery in the 1970's, it turns out it wasn't entirely a new discovery. In fact, it had been known to mankind thousands of years ago, and has a very interesting journey from ancient to modern medicine. Several thousand years ago, ancient Chinese doctors prescribed tea made from a flowering plant called Qing Hao (modern name: artemisia) for fever and inflammation. Like many other traditional medicines, it was lost in historical texts. That is until the Vietnam War started. The Viêt-Cong soldiers fighti

It's been over a year since COVID-19 first made its appearance, yet it remains as challenging as ever to beat. As cases surge around the world with no clear remedy in sight except for the vaccine (hopefully!), there is increasing attention being paid to ancient remedies. After various Indian and Chinese remedies made their rounds (which I wrote about some time back), here's a new one that made news this month. Andrographis paniculata , a herbal plant commonly known as green chiretta, was recently approved by Thailand for treating COVID-19. Their ministry of health has started a pilot program to test the alternative treatment after human trials showed patient condition improving within days of treatment with the extract. The ancient herb has apparently reduced the severity of inflammations in early stages of the disease.  Turns out, Andrographis paniculata is a well known ayurvedic herb, called  Kalmegh,  and is used to treat liver disease and fever. According to ayurveda, the &

I can think of no other year, at least in my lifetime, that the new year has held so much promise and people have welcomed January 1st with so much eagerness and hope! It's a time to bid goodbye to 2020 and the pandemic, and welcome the new year with new beginnings- a historic vaccine, the triumph of science and the return to normal life with friends, travel and in-person school! With January 1st holding so much importance, have you ever wondered why it is that day that begins the new year? January 1st is quite a random day really. It is the middle of winter with no special religious or seasonal festival marking the date or even the month, so why do we start the year on that day? Of course, it goes back to the Classical age!  The first new year celebration goes back several millennia to around 2000 BC when the Mesopotamians started celebrating the new year. However, they celebrated it on the vernal equinox in mid-March, when the length of day equals the length of night. The Egyptia

Pandemic probably tops the long list of new words added to our vocabulary in 2020, but before it earned that notoriety, covid-19 was classified as an epidemic in Wuhan, China. It was only in March 2020 that WHO upgraded it to a pandemic -- far deadlier and more widespread than an epidemic. What's in a name, you ask? Merriam Webster defines an epidemic as a disease affecting a large number of individuals within a population, community, or region at the same time;  a pandemic is an epidemic occurring worldwide, or over a very wide area, crossing international boundaries and usually affecting a large number of people, according to the WHO. Not surprisingly, both words are derived from ancient Greek. Pandemic comes from the Greek word pandemos , based on pan meaning "all" + demos meaning "people" or "population"; pandemic therefore affects nearly all of the people. In contrast, epi means "upon," so epidemic is something visited upon the people.