Common yarrow in medical history

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Common yarrow ( Achillea millefolium ). The plant names listed in the herbal books of antiquity, late antiquity and the Middle Ages can only be assigned very uncertainly to the plant species known to us.

Dioscurides and Pliny (1st century) named two plants that were later interpreted as yarrow that

  • achilleion with the healing effects: wound healing, anti-inflammatory, hemostasis, as a tampon also on the uterus; the decoction internally against blood flow and dysentery and that
  • stratioton chiliophyllon (thousand- leaved stratioton ) with the healing effects: hemostasis, healing of wounds and fistulas.

Galen (3rd century) briefly characterized a plant called millefolium as drying and healing wounds.

In the late antique herbal book Pseudo-Apuleius (4th - 6th centuries) the following uses were mentioned for the millefolium :

  1. The root against toothache.
  2. The herb grated in fat as a layer to heal cuts and stab wounds ( vulnera de ferro facta ).
  3. The herb grated with butter as a pad against swellings ( tumores ).
  4. The herb drunk with vinegar against problems with urination ( urinae difficultates ).

In her Physica (12th century), Hildegard von Bingen took over the information from earlier authors on the wound healing of the yarrow she called garwa and added three-day fever as a further indication. The garwa should be boiled in wine with a plant called polypodium (interpreted as common potted fern ) and the sifted should be given to the patient before the expected attack of three-day fever.

The common yarrow was also mentioned in many herbal medicine and botanical manuscripts and prints from the late Middle Ages and early modern times.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Halle clinicians Georg Ernst Stahl and Friedrich Hoffmann regarded yarrow as a panacea , which they used in particular for "nervous atony", for colic with flatulence and for bleaching ("passive hemorrhage"), and still more In the 19th century the plant was listed in Germany in the Tonica or Roborantia category as a means of general strengthening.

Historical illustrations

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Otto Brunfels : Contrafayt Kreüterbůch . Strasbourg 1532, foreword, chapter 19 (digitized version) - Henry E. Sigerist : Studies and texts on early medieval recipe literature. Barth, Leipzig 1923, foreword, SV - Charles Singer : The herbal in antiquity . In: The journal of hellenistic studies. Volume 47 (1927), pp. 1-52. - Brigitte Hoppe: Hieronymus Bock's book of herbs. Scientific historical investigation. With a list of all plants in the work, the literary sources of the medicinal indications and the uses of the plants. Hiersemann, Stuttgart 1969 - Gundolf Keil : Phytotherapy and medical history. In: Journal of Phytotherapy. Volume 6, 1985, pp. 172-178, et al
  2. ↑ Julius Berendes : Des Pedanios Dioskurides from Anazarbos medicament theory . Stuttgart 1902, Book IV, Chapter 36: achilleios (digitized) and Book IV, Chapter 101: stratiotes chiliophyllos (digitized) .
  3. ↑ Pliny : 1st century Naturalis historia , Book XXV, § 42, Chapter XIX (text Latin) - translation by Philipp H. Külb , Stuttgart 1855, Book XXV (Chapter XIX) (digitized version )
  4. ^ Galen : De simplicium medicamentorum temperamentis ac facultatibus. Book VII, Chapter XII / 29 (after Kühn 1826, Vol. XII, p. 81): millefolium (digitized) .
  5. ↑ Pseudo-Apuleius , 4th century, printed Rome 1481 (digitized version)
  6. ↑ HF Kästner (Ed.): Pseudo-Dioscorides de herbis feminis. In: Hermes. Volume 31, 1896, pp. 613–614 (digitized version )
  7. ↑ Kai Brodersen : Apuleius, Heilkräuterbuch / Herbarius , Latin and German. Marix, Wiesbaden 2015, pp. 154–155 ISBN 978-3-7374-0999-5
  8. ^ Charles Victor Daremberg and Friedrich Anton Reuss (1810–1868): S. Hildegardis Abbatissae Subtilitatum Diversarum Naturarum Creaturarum Libri Novem. Physica , Book I, Chapter 113: Garwa. Migne, Paris 1855. Sp. 1175 (digitized)
  9. ↑ Herbert Reier. Hildegard von Bingen. Physica. Translated into German after the text edition by JP Migne, Paris 1882. Kiel 1980, p. 37. - Marie-Louise Portmann. Hildegard von Bingen. Healing powers of nature - Physica. Herder, Freiburg 1993, pp. 131-132
  10. ↑ Irmgard Müller. The herbal remedies from Hildegard von Bingen. Otto Müller, Salzburg 1982, ISBN 3-7013-0630-3 , p. 88.
  11. ↑ Koehler's medicinal plants . Eugen Köhler, Gera 1887, Volume I, No 70
  12. ↑ Karl Sudhoff : Alexander Hispanus and the written work under his name. A first word about him and announcement of his medical writings. In: Sudhoff's archive. 29 (1936), pp. 289-312; 30 (1937), pp. 1-25.
  13. ↑ Gerold Hayer: Elixir Nicolay Frawenlob von Hiersperg. Investigations into the transmission of a late medieval medical and natural history house book (with partial edition). Göppinger papers on German studies No. 304. Kümmerle, Göppingen 1980, pp. 185–265, ISBN 3-87452-486-8
  14. ↑ Brigitte Baumann, Helmut Baumann : The Mainz herb book incunabula - "Herbarius Moguntinus" (1484) - "Gart der Gesundheit" (1485) - "Hortus Sanitatis" (1491). Scientific historical investigation of the three prototypes of botanical-medical literature of the late Middle Ages. Hiersemann, Stuttgart 2010, ISBN 978-3-7772-1020-9 .
  15. ↑ Brigitte Hoppe: Hieronymus Bock's book of herbs. Scientific historical investigation. With a list of all plants in the work, the literary sources of the medicinal indications and the uses of the plants. Hiersemann, Stuttgart 1969, p. 222
  16. ↑ Koehler's medicinal plants . Eugen Köhler, Gera 1887, Volume I, No 70

Web links