Finding the Science in Tradition

摘要

The ethnopharmacology of plants is discussed, with an emphasis on the relationship between traditional knowledge and modern medicine. Although traditional medicine differs in several respects from modern medicine, it can provide important guidance for pharmacological studies. One study profiled established a positive correlation between frequency of use of certain plants by Canadian First Nations for infectious conditions and the antifungal activity of these plants. In a second study, plants used by traditional Borneo healers to treat malaria were found to be more active in antiplasmodial laboratory screens than control plants. The third study found that a medicinal plant Lansium domesticum Corr. (Langsat) with the highest healer consensus was the most active in scientific tests, and yielded compounds that were effective in treating parasitaemia in mice infected with malaria. In the fourth and final study, the polysaccharide fraction of the root of Panax quinquefolius L. (American ginseng), an herb used as a tonic and blood fortifier by Indigenous peoples of North America, stimulated the release of immunoreactive tumour necrosis factor alpha in culture. These four examples illustrate how traditional knowledge can point the way to modern science investigations, which can then define more precisely the pharmacological activity and important active components of medicinal plants.