Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Herbs that typically grew in the wild were accessible to the local population therefore, herbalism was a field not only dominated by scholars. Not only did Herbalists find the use of wild-grown herbs, but they also found the use of natural herbs that acted as drugs for major surgeries or for psychoactive use.
The work is dedicated to "the perfect knowledge and understanding of all kinds of herbs and their gracious virtues" [notes 11] and incorporates a number of novelties: a register of chapters in Latin and English, an anatomical diagram showing the names of different human bones, a section devoted to 25 treatments presented as "innovative" or a ...
In China and the Arab world, the Greco-Roman work on medicinal plants was preserved and extended. In Europe, the Renaissance of the 14th–17th centuries heralded a scientific revival during which botany gradually emerged from natural history as an independent science, distinct from medicine and agriculture.
In Europe, apothecaries stocked herbal ingredients as traditional medicines. In the Latin names for plants created by Linnaeus , the word officinalis indicates that a plant was used in this way. For example, the marsh mallow has the classification Althaea officinalis , as it was traditionally used as an emollient to soothe ulcers . [ 2 ]
An example of a herbal medicine resource: the bark of the cinchona tree contains quinine, which today is a widely prescribed treatment for malaria. The unpurified bark is still used by some who cannot afford to purchase more expensive antimalarial drugs.
The use of plants for medicinal purposes, and their descriptions, dates back two to three thousand years. [10] [11] The word herbal is derived from the mediaeval Latin liber herbalis ("book of herbs"): [2] it is sometimes used in contrast to the word florilegium, which is a treatise on flowers [12] with emphasis on their beauty and enjoyment rather than the herbal emphasis on their utility. [13]
The book became the principal reference work on pharmacology across Europe and the Middle East for over 1,500 years, [2] and was thus the precursor of all modern pharmacopoeias. [ 3 ] [ 4 ] In contrast to many classical authors, De materia medica was not "rediscovered" in the Renaissance, because it never left circulation; indeed, Dioscorides ...
De historia is Fuchs' major work, a large book about plants and their uses as medicines (a herbal) first appearing in Latin in 1542, and being rapidly translated into other languages. Although the text is largely borrowed from earlier authors, and is not based on any system of classification, with its 512 plates it set a new standard in ...