Available online 29 April 2016
- Department of Pharmaceutical Botany, School of Pharmacy with the Division of Laboratory Medicine in Sosnowiec, Medical University of Silesia in Katowice, ul. Ostrogórska 30, 41–200 Sosnowiec, Poland
- Received 28 January 2016, Revised 25 April 2016, Accepted 28 April 2016, Available online 29 April 2016
Abstract
Ethnopharmacological relevance
Historical medical sources can be still queried for forgotten cures and remedies. Traditional Chinese medicine has dealt with lues venerea
(syphilis) since the Five Dynasties period (10th century). Chinese
indigenous materia medica and remedies recorded, studied or imported by
the Europeans can reveal known or quite unknown medicinal plants. The
studied Jean Astruc's work is a published ethnopharmacological survey
carried out in Beijing in the 1730's and it deserves a modern
interpretation.
Aim of the study
this is the first proposal to identify historical Chinese medicinal plants listed in a scarcely known medical treatise De Morbis venereis…
(‘On venereal diseases…’) by Jean Astruc from 1740. I searched for the
current uses and position of the taxonomically identified herbal stock
in both traditional Chinese and official medical knowledge, with special
attention to syphilis.
Material and methods
Chinese
names of drugs and their botanical identities (originally expressed by
means of pre-Linnaean polynomials, and now interpreted as accepted
binomials) were independently cross-checked with younger till most
recent taxonomical and ethnopharmacological sources. Plants and drugs
identified this way were queried for their modern applications in
traditional Chinese and official medicine with special attention to
sexually transmitted diseases (STD) and other uses which are similar to
the 18th-century understanding of venerology.
Results
For 24 items of medicinal stock, 34 medicinal plants have been identified or suspected: Acacia
catechu, Achyranthes bidentata, Akebia quinata, Angelica dahurica, A.
sinensis, Aquilaria sinensis, Aralia cordata, Aristolochia fangchi,
Chaenomeles sinensis, Ch. speciosa, Clematis vitalba, Coix lacryma-jobi,
Commiphora myrrha, Cydonia oblonga, Daemonorops draco, D. jenkinsiana,
Dictamnus dasycarpus, Dryobalanops sumatrensis, Forsythia suspensa,
Glycyrrhiza uralensis, Lonicera confusa, L. hypoglauca, L. japonica,
Ligusticum striatum (= L. chuanxiong), Piper kadsura,
Pterocarpus officinalis, Saposhnikovia divaricata, Sassafras tzumu,
Smilax china, S. glabra, Stephania tetrandra, Styphnolobium japonicum,
Trichosanthes japonica, T. kirilowii; China wax is also mentioned. Out of them, only Lonicera japonica is being used in China in late syphilis, Achyranthes bidentata in gonorrhoea, and Dictamnus dasycarpus
in gynaecological problems. In the Astruc's study, 3 medicinal plant
species and 5 further plant genera are correctly determined; other plant
parts were misidentified.
Conclusions
Antisyphilitic
actions ascribed to the Chinese medical formulas and their constituents
studied by Astruc, seem to have come from Hg or As compounds rather
than from vegetative materia medica. The formulas contained only one
species still known in TCM as a remedy for syphilis.
Graphical abstract
Abbreviations
- CMM, Chinese materia medica;
- STD, sexually transmitted diseases;
- TCM, traditional Chinese medicine
Keywords
- antisyphilitic action;
- China;
- de Jussieu;
- syphilis;
- 18th century;
- plants
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