History of Medicine

Happy Saint Patrick's Day! Last year, I wrote about the history of beer to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. Today, I decided to explore the history of the shamrock which is a symbol of symbol of Ireland and represents good luck. The word shamrock comes from the Gaelic word seamróg, meaning “little clover.” It generally represents a plant in the trifolium family, which is characterized by three leaves.  The three-leafed shamrock holds special meaning to the Irish for many reasons, but most importantly because it was used by St. Patrick, Ireland's patron saint, to explain the Christian Holy Trinity of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit to peasants in the 5th century. The four-leaf clover is a genetic mutation and considered lucky because it is very rare (1 in 10,000)—the fourth leaf is said to represent God's grace, thereby bringing luck. Besides its religious significance, the clover leaf was also well known for its medicinal properties in ancient times. The clover leaf i

Just as we owe most of our medical knowledge to the physicians of ancient times, there are some medicines in use today that are directly taken from ancient medicine. One such ancient medicine that is still used today, albeit in a different form, is aspirin. Aspirin is arguably the most commonly used drug in the world today. It  has  appeared in the Guinness Book of Records as the most frequently sold pain reliever in the world and is also  “one of the most endurably successful commercial products of all time."   Its use ranges from simple pain relief to heart attack and stroke prevention.  The active ingredient of Aspirin is the medicinal compound salicin, which is refined from willow bark, and that's the ancient connection. Willow bark was used extensively by the ancient Sumerians and Egyptians for pain relief, and later advocated by Hippocrates in Greece and Pliny the Elder in Ancient Rome. Willow bark continued to be used as a pain reliever in its natural form until the mid

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 &