physic garden
TRANSCRIPT
American Physic Gardens and Herbal Medicine
The Pennsylvania Hospital original Cornerstone in East Wing of 1755 building
• On June 7, 1774, physicians at Pennsylvania Hospital aBended a meeDng of the Board of Managers and heard a proposal to establish a Botanical Garden on the hospital grounds. Such a proposal pleased them mighDly as a garden of this kind would provide physicians with a ready source of ingredients for the medical remedies of the period, almost all of which were based on plant material. For a variety of reasons, chiefly financial, the Botanical Garden did not become a reality unDl 1976, 200 years aSer the original proposal, when it was "generously executed" as a Bicentennial project by the Philadelphia CommiBee of the Garden Club of America and friends of Pennsylvania Hospital, including physicians and other staff members.
• Greek concept of four basic elements [fire, air, water, and earth] and corresponding humors: – Blood – Phlegm – Black bile – Yellow bile
Physician’s job to maintain balance by bleeding, purging, emeDcs, blistering, poisoning [i.e. herbs]
Beginnings of botanical science
• During the 16th and 17th centuries the first plants were being imported to major Western European gardens from Eastern Europe and nearby Asia (which provided many bulbs) and these found a place in the new gardens where they could be conveniently studied by the plant experts of the day.
• For example, Asian introducDons were described by Carolus Clusius (1526 – 1609) who was director, in turn, of the Botanical Garden of the University of Vienna and Hortus Botanicus Leiden.
• Many plants were being collected from the Near East, especially bulbous plants from Turkey.
• Herbalism reached its first major peak in Europe in 1652 when Dr Nicolas Culpeper published his book, The English Physician,
• Filled with some 300 herbs, drawings, and their medicinal uses. He is considered by many, to be the father of alternaDve medicine.
18th century methods for producing herbal
remedies
• Tincture: herb is soaked in alcohol, strained and used. • DecocDon: This method was used for tougher parts of the herb plants, the roots, stem and bark. The herb is boiled in water unDl water is reduced by 1/2 to 1/3.
• Infusion: Immersing the herb in water as in the leaves. Don’t boil herbs. Use one rounded spoon of infusion: Immersing the herb in water as in tea.
• DisDlled: Infusing the herb with water, boiling same and catching the condensed steam. Makes a condensed form of an infusion.
HOREHOUND
• Used to make a cough syrup. OSen used with honey and other herbs. Mixed with plaintain for snakebites. Soaked in fresh milk to repel flies. The leaves are used for flavoring beer, cough drops, honey and for making tea. Leaves should be gathered just before the flowers open.
• To make candy, steep two heaping teaspoons of dried horehound in one-‐cup water for half an hour. Strain. Put the leaves in a cloth and press or twist to get the remaining flavor. Add 3 1⁄2 pounds of brown sugar to the water and boil unDl it reaches the ball stage. Pour into flat, well-‐greased pans andmark into sDcks or squares with a knife. You can adjust the taste by adding more tea.
Colonial herbals as modern medicine
• Seneca Snakeroot – A member of the dogbane family, snakeroot has been used as a sedaDve for centuries. The acDve element, reserpine, is now used in treaDng a variety of psychiatric disorders and hypertension.
• Willow – Tea made from the bark of the willow tree has been used since the Romans for curing headaches or other pains. Its ingredients, Salicylates, is known to us today as aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid).
Reserpine The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth EdiGon | 2008 | reserpine , alkaloid isolated from the root of the snakeroot plant
( Rauwolfia serpen6na ), a small evergreen climbing shrub of the dogbane family na6ve to the Indian subcon6nent. Known in India as Sarpaganda, it was used for centuries to treat insanity as well as physical illnesses such as fevers and snakebites. AEer its isola6on in 1952 it was used to lower highblood pressure , but its property of producing severe depression as a side effect also made it useful in psychiatry as a tranquilizer in the control of agitated psycho6c pa6ents. It has largely been replaced in psychiatric use by the phenothiazine tranquilizers, although it is s6ll used as an experimental tool in the study of psychosis. Reserpine causes many toxic side effects including nightmares, Parkinsonism (see Parkinson's disease ), and gastrointes6nal disturbances.