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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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