Tu Youyou won the Nobel Prize for rediscovering artemisinin, a anti-malaria treatment, from a 1,600-year-old text and scientifically formalizing it.
The medical handbook that first describes the formula (including the fact that you need to use low-temperature water) was written in the year 340. That's not a typo.
>I believe we shouldn't just dismiss the old remedies and other tricks.
We test many of those remedies and tricks with a formal method. The ones that work further science and our collective understanding. The ones that don't are relegated as old wives tales.
Even the article narrows in on this correctly.
>Alcantar told her postdoc about this, and because they didn’t have a lab, directed him to try “a quick and dirty experiment.”
>“Two days later he came back and said ‘Yeah, it worked,’” she said.
Q: Do you know what they call alternative medicine that works?
A: Medecine.
I think many old remedies have been tested and then get refined to work better. Willow bark was used for thousands of years as pain relief but now those chemicals found in the bark have been refined into aspirin.
I have an uncle in his 70s. The other day he gave me some shrubbery to chew on coz of a toothache. I was like yeah-yeah let me humour him. Shock on me! The thing worked! Numbs the pain. In fact, any part of the tongue had a numbed feeling similar to the feeling you get when the dentist injects you.. I believe there’s probably a lot one can learn from the connected with nature older folks
Saponins are a well known type of substances. It was created as predators deterrent but we can use if as predator's detergent. There is even a tree that bears soap berries, so you don't need to kill any poor cactus or use animal fat for that. First course of plant physiology.
Most people understand their parents' generation fairly well, but there is a lot of knowledge in generations further removed from our own that generally gets dismissed. That's not to say we should easily believe things from the past without evidence, but there's merit looking into and formally testing old ideas.
> Sometimes, if the water was dirty, she’d boil it with part of a cactus plant. Alcantar questioned how adding something gooey would help.
Isn't this just clarifying? Like adding egg whites to clarify red wine or aspic. The same process (usually egg whites, but also some other gooey substances) is used to extract impurities from a lot of things.
The technical term is flocculation, but yes it's ultimately the same process. Cacti just happen to be a very cheap, commercially available source of large amounts of mucilage.
[+] [-] smusamashah|4 years ago|reply
How about herbal medicine? Other household remedies? How about these things from a very different living environment and culture?
I believe we shouldn't just dismiss the old remedies and other tricks.
[+] [-] spoonjim|4 years ago|reply
The medical handbook that first describes the formula (including the fact that you need to use low-temperature water) was written in the year 340. That's not a typo.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ge_Hong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_Youyou
[+] [-] s_dev|4 years ago|reply
We test many of those remedies and tricks with a formal method. The ones that work further science and our collective understanding. The ones that don't are relegated as old wives tales.
Even the article narrows in on this correctly.
>Alcantar told her postdoc about this, and because they didn’t have a lab, directed him to try “a quick and dirty experiment.”
>“Two days later he came back and said ‘Yeah, it worked,’” she said.
[+] [-] RandallBrown|4 years ago|reply
A: Medecine.
I think many old remedies have been tested and then get refined to work better. Willow bark was used for thousands of years as pain relief but now those chemicals found in the bark have been refined into aspirin.
[+] [-] M_bara|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pvaldes|4 years ago|reply
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/pharmacology-toxicology...
[+] [-] guram11|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] trompetenaccoun|4 years ago|reply
Most people understand their parents' generation fairly well, but there is a lot of knowledge in generations further removed from our own that generally gets dismissed. That's not to say we should easily believe things from the past without evidence, but there's merit looking into and formally testing old ideas.
[+] [-] adkadskhj|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vmception|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rand0mx1|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vkou|4 years ago|reply
If only there was a method for differentiating old nonsense from advice that actually works... A scientific one, even?
[+] [-] 0xbadcafebee|4 years ago|reply
Isn't this just clarifying? Like adding egg whites to clarify red wine or aspic. The same process (usually egg whites, but also some other gooey substances) is used to extract impurities from a lot of things.
[+] [-] AlotOfReading|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] helge9210|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cnasc|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TchoBeer|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] v8dev123|4 years ago|reply