Drugs from the Colonies: |
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A vast array of American plants encountered by Europeans were understood to hold important functions in internal medicine. Physicians conducted their own studies on drug plants that appeared to have beneficial effects on familiar problems in digestion and micturation. Most startling is the wide range of applications that were associated with a single plant, treating at least the symptoms of greatly differing medical conditions with the leaves, fruit, seeds, sap, bark, or roots. |
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CASCARILLA Friedrich Hoffmann (1660-1742), praeses; Philipp Adolph Boehmer, respondent. De cortice cascarillae. Halle: Grunert Press, 1738. This is a dissertation on Croton eluteria, a plant of the West Indies; its first chapter treats its American origin. Cascarilla is used to prepare an aromatic, bitter tonic, which may have narcotic properties. Applications include dyspepsia, intermittent and low fevers, diarrhoea, and dysentery. It is a stimulant to mucous membranes, and in chronic bronchitis is used as an expectorant. It is thought to be valuable in atonia dyspepsia, flatulence, chronic diarrhoea, debility, and convalescence. Added to cinchona, it will arrest vomiting caused by that drug. The leaves are used for a digestive tea, and the bark for a black dye. The sturdy bark has a strong scent and is also used in fumigating pastilles. When ground up and mixed with tobacco, it tends to cause giddiness and symptoms of intoxication in some persons. Nassau is a main source of cultivation for export. |
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CERASEE Lydia Byam (fl. 1797-1800). [Fruits of the West Indies]. [London, 1800]. Roughly a century after the artistic and scientific achievements of Maria Merian in Suriname and the Netherlands, this relatively unknown student of Caribbean natural history produced two fine series, each of ten engravings of medicinal plants. Shown here is “smooth cerasee,” or bitter melon, a kind of gourd known to botanical scientists as Momordica charantia. Its small, bitter fruit is used in traditional Caribbean medicine to make a tea used as a stomach tonic and blood purifier. Herbal practitioners have also used it in treating diabetes. It is cooked with potatoes and garlic to produce nourishment that also is said to protect against malaria. Numerous other uses have been recorded. In recent times it has been found to be helpful in treating patients who are HIV-positive. |
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GUAVA Pedro de Montenegro (1663-1728). [Plantas de misiones]. [Paraguay, before 1715]. Father Pedro de Montenegro was a Spanish Jesuit and naturalist who embarked on a mission to Paraguay around 1693, where he studied the medicinal plants of South America. From 1715 he was sent to Uruguay where he served as a doctor to missionaries and the local populace. In the years 1710-1711 Montenegro completed a manuscript focused on the trees and plants of the Tucuman region and Brazil, chiefly in Spanish, with Guarani and Tupi names of plants featured throughout. What may be the original manuscript is housed in the Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid. The JCB Library’s Codex Spanish 36 seems to be another physician’s working copy of the Montenegro text of plant descriptions, recipes, and courses of treatment. A note left in the book by an earlier owner suggests that it has additions not in the Montenegro original. In the pages opened (96-97), the physician describes the guyabo, originally an Arawak term for the guava plant. In addition to being an edible fruit, the guava is used in folk medicine as a remedy for diarrhoea, infections, and even for diabetes. Much research has been conducted since the 1950s, especially on the apple guava, using extracts from its leaves in experimental therapies against cancer, bacterial infections, pain, and inflammation. |
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GUAVA Francisco, López de Gómara (1511 – 1564). La historia general de las Indias. Saragossa: Miguel de Capila, 1554. Many of the images Spaniards received of the natural world in their new colonies were delivered by López de Gómara, who studied and processed the researches of others. In this woodcut view he presents six floral plants, first of all, seemingly the coca, and in fifth place the guava. The others are likely the jobo or hog plum, the jaguar or jenipap, the mamay apple, and in last position possibly a kind of guanábana, the source of a flavorful juice. |
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MECHOACAN John Gerard (1545-1612). The herballe or Generall historie of plantes. London: John Norton, 1597. Included in the famous herbal of Gerard are the milkweed plant used in the south as a remedy for snake bites and for the bites of venomous insects, as well as Nicotiana and mechoacan. Mechoacan, shown here in varieties particular to Mexico and Peru, is also known as Bryonia and as a jalap. It was valued for its purgative properties. Roots, leaves, and flowers are depicted. |
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PAREIRA BRAVA Michael Friedrich Lochner (1662-1720). Schediasma de parreira brava, novo Americano aliisque recentioribus calculi remediis… Nuremberg: Peter Conrad Monath, 1719. Pareira brava, known as abutua to the natives of Brazil where it is found, is used to treat urinary irritation and cystitis, and also serves as a diuretic. A cross-section of the root used in preparing this medication is shown opposite p. 28. Also shown here is caapeba, including its roots, vine, leaves, and fruits. Found in the tropical Amazon, especially Suriname, and alternatively called cake bush, caapeba is used by native healers in treating colic.It has numerous other herbal medicine applications, including relief from menstrual cramps and easing childbirth, as well as treating urinary infections, kidney stones, arthritis, dysentery, colic, and intestinal worms. It has been used by indigenous peoples for centuries. |
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SENECA SNAKEROOT John Tennant (ca. 1700-ca. 1760). An epistle to Dr. Richard Mead, concerning the epidemical diseases of Virginia, particularly, a pleurisy and peripneumony: wherein is shewn the efficacy of the Seneca rattle-snake root. Edinburgh: P. Matthie, 1738. Tennant learned in Virginia that Indians used the rattlesnake root (Seneca snakeroot) as a cure for rattlesnake bites, but he found that there were several varieties, not all with the same potency. The Seneca Indians were found to have the greatest success in treatment. Untreated, a victim could die as quickly as in 15 minutes. Tennant also gave the drug to patients with pleurisies and peripneumonies, inflammations of the pleura and lungs. Various case histories are provided. The plant product is still used as an expectorant in cough medicines, and in herbal medicine and Native American medicine it was used for stomach-ache, headache, and respiratory problems. It also has been used in herbal medicine as a purgative, emetic, and diuretic. |
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SIMARUBA Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717). Dissertatio de generatione et metamorphosibus insectorum Surinamensium. Amsterdam: J. Oosterwyk, 1719. One source of information on this tropical plant is Maria Merian’s artwork, featuring a branch of the gumbo-limbo tree (Bursera simaruba), showing the leaves and stem, along with life cycles of a moth. The notes on the plants were written by Caspar Commelin. Indigenous to the Amazon rainforest and to tropical areas of Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean, it has extensive medical applications for the leaves, bark, and root, including treatment of dysentery, internal bleeding, fever, intestinal worms, malaria, wounds, skin problems, stomach pain, etc. It was first identified by Europeans in 1530. |