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Plants and
nutritional supplements tend to be safer, often just as effective and
considerably cheaper to produce then their synthetic
counterparts.Plants and their derivatives are currently the sources for
thousands of drugs worldwide. The following is a small list of some
very important synthetic drugs from plants:
Taxus
brevifolia gave us the cancer drug Paclitaxel (Taxol).
Cinchona
pubescens gave us the anti-malarial drug quinine.
Ephedra species
gave us Pseudoephedrine, commonly used for sinus congestion or
congestion of the tubes of the inner ear eustachian
(yoo-STAY-shun) tubes.
Mentha species
and wintergreen (gaultheria procumbens) gave us Menthol and methylsalicylate, originally derived from
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Papaver
somniferum, commonly known as the opium poppy which the
powerful pain killer morphine came from
Digitalis purpurea, or purple foxglove, is
which was the source for digitoxin, a cardiac drug which increases the
strength of the heart beat while decreasing its rate.
Rauwolfia
serpentine contains the alkaloid reserpine used to treat
hypertension. In
1934 Serpina, the world's first-ever anti-hypertensive drug reserpine
from rauwolfia was launched.
Curare a plant members of Columbus' second trip to the Americas in 1493 were
to first experience, a poison on the tips of arrows which killed them
promptly. This led to the development of a valuable drug that
was one of modern medicine’s first introductions to Anesthesia used in medicine and surgery to relax skeletal muscle.
Papaver
somniferum (Opium_poppy),
provided the powerful pain killer morphine.
Willow Bark is the original
acetylsalicylic acid used to synthesize aspirin .
To read more
about synthetic drugs and their plant sources visit the following
website http://www.rain-tree.com/plantdrugs.htm
A
Little Medical Botanical History
On September 19,
1991, one of the most extraordinary discoveries of our Century took
place in Austria’s Otzal Alps, when two hikers discovered an ice mummy
preserved by freezing. The analysis of samples of organic tissues has
determined that the Iceman lived between 3350 and 3100 B.C.
The Ice Man died
approximately 5200 years ago. At death he was between 40 and 50 years
old and suffered from a number of medical conditions. He turned into a
mummy accidentally almost immediately by the freezing weather
conditions that turned him into the Ice Man. The Ice Man's possessions
have given scientists a better look at what life was during the
Neolithic Age in Europe. Perhaps the most valuable possession,
according to many scientists, was his “medicine kit,” two walnut-sized
lumps of a birch fungus used as a laxative and as a natural antibiotic.
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