The First Drug Appeared During 140-130 BC

The First Drug Appeared During 140-130 BC.
Archeologists investigating an old shipwreck off the seaboard of Tuscany report they have stumbled upon a rare find: a tightly closed tin container with well-preserved c physic dating back to about 140-130 BC. A multi-disciplinary gang analyzed fragments of the green-gray tablets to decipher their chemical, mineralogical and botanical composition. The results proposition a peek into the complexity and sophistication of ancient therapeutics.

So "The research highlights the continuity from then until now in the use of some substances for the remedying of human diseases," said archeologist and lead researcher Gianna Giachi, a chemist at the Archeological Heritage of Tuscany, in Florence, Italy. "The inquire into also shows the carefulness that was taken in choosing complex mixtures of products - olive oil, pine resin, starch - in demand to get the desired therapeutic effect and to help in the preparation and relevance of medicine".

The medicines and other materials were found together in a tight space and are thought to have been originally packed in a box that seems to have belonged to a physician, said Alain Touwaide, scientific director of the Institute for the Preservation of Medical Traditions, in Washington, DC Touwaide is a fellow of the multi-disciplinary team that analyzed the materials. The tablets contained an iron oxide, as well as starch, beeswax, pine resin and a composite of plant-and-animal-derived lipids, or fats.

Touwaide said botanists on the inquiry team discovered that the tablets also contained carrot, radish, parsley, celery, strange onion and cabbage - simple plants that would be found in a garden. Giachi said that the mixture and shape of the tablets suggest they may have been used to treat the eyes, dialect mayhap as an eyewash. But Touwaide, who compared findings from the analysis to what has been understood from ancient texts about medicine, said the metallic component found in the tablets was undoubtedly used not just for eyewashes but also to treat wounds.

The ascertaining is evidence of the effectiveness of some natural medicines that have been used for literally thousands of years. "This bumf potentially represents essentially several centuries of clinical trials. If natural medicine is utilized for centuries and centuries, it's not because it doesn't work".

A report on the analysis of the tablets was published in this week's problem of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The shipwrecked boat - the Relitto del Pozzino - was found in the Gulf of Baratti in 1974 and win explored eight years later. The scrutiny of the tablets was begun about two years ago. The vessel, about 50 to 60 feet long, was found in an square considered a key east-west trade route.

In adding to the pills, archeologists found other remnants of early medicine: a copper bleeding cup, a tin pitcher, 136 boxwood vials, and tin containers. The tablets were well preserved for the decisive 2000 years because the cylindrical tin container in which they were stored, called a pyxis, was hermetically sealed by the habitual degeneracy of the metal adding that very few other ancient medicines have been discovered elsewhere. "In London, a comminuted cream was discovered in a small tin canister.

It was dated to the second century AD and was quite used as moistening or medicinal cream". Giachi noted that another botanical medicine was found at the bottom of a dolium - a heavy-set Roman earthenware container - from the first century AD, recovered near Pompeii. Also, in Lyon, France, cylindrical rods recovered from a tick century AD obsequies site were considered to be eyewashes. To analyze the material found in the shipwreck, a fragment from the fresh tablets was studied with light microscopy and a scanning electron microscope. DNA sequencing was second-hand to analyze the organic elements.

Other experts in the field lauded the discovery as a rare find that offered valuable clues to the authentic types of materials used in ancient medicine. "What we certain about ancient medicine is largely contained in manuscripts, often corrupt - copied and recopied and fragmentary," said Michael Sappol, an historian in the old hat of medicine division of the US National Library of Medicine. "When the manuscripts over to plants, it's not always evident what they're referring to. There's a lot we don't know".

Dr Mark Fromer, an ophthalmologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, said it makes sagacity that the cure-all that was discovered on the ship was an eye film to treat dry eye, a common condition even today. "It's easy to make: it's saline, which has a pH acid match close to tears provillusshop com. It's fascinating to realize that the problems that faced men and women thousands of years ago haven't changed".