Common horse chestnut in medical history

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Bark of the common horse chestnut ( Aesculus hippocastanum ) as a substitute for cinchona bark . From the middle of the 17th century, the bitter tasting cinchona bark was used in Europe to treat alternating fever .

The bark was very expensive. The pharmacist's taxes indicated a significantly higher price for cinchona bark than for local bark:

Augsburg Pharmacopoeia 1734 Württemberg Pharmacopoeia 1741 Frankfurt Pharmacopoeia 1747
Cinchona bark 16 cruc. / Pile. 12 kr. / Loth 80 Creutzer / Loth
Ash bark 1 cruc. / Pile. 1 Kr. / Loth 1 Creutzer / Loth
Horse chestnut bark 2 cruc. / Pile. 2 Kr. / Loth 1 Creutzer / Loth
From Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland Arms Pharmacopoeia (1810–1836). Two recipes for replacing cinchona bark

In search of an inexpensive domestic substitute for cinchona bark, the bark of native trees was examined in the 18th century, namely the bark of the ash (from 1712), the bark of the horse chestnut (from 1733) and the bark of the willow tree (from 1757 ).

The pharmacist Jacopo Zannichelli (1695–1759) in Venice reported in 1733/34 on successful applications of horse chestnut bark for three-day fever , which the German doctor Paul Heinrich Gerhard Möhring in 1736 did not find confirmed in his practice in the treatment of four -day fever . In 1763, HW Peipers announced in his dissertation “De cortice Hippocastani” that his teacher Johann Gottlob Leidenfrost in Duisburg had cured at least 20 people suffering from three-day fever from 1752 by treating them with horse chestnut bark. Using the method of John Pringle, Peipers himself compared the rot-inhibiting effects of horse chestnut bark and cinchona bark and came to the conclusion that decoctions made from horse chestnut bark preserved fresh beef just as well as decoctions made from cinchona bark. Wilhelm Heinrich Sebastian Bucholz repeated Peiper's experiments in 1769 and used "essential salts" of horse chestnut bark and cinchona bark , which he had produced according to the method of Count Claude-Toussaint Marot de La Garaye , for the experiments set up according to the John Pringle method. He came to the conclusion that the anti-rot effect of the "essential salts of horse chestnut bark" was only slightly less than the anti-rot effect of the "essential salts of cinchona bark". Accordingly, the salt made from horse chestnut bark has a strong fever-repelling power. In 1776, the Academy of Sciences in Lyon crowned an award publication that Jean François Coste (1741-1819) (doctor at the Royal Military Hospital in Calais ) and Rémi Willemet (pharmacist in Nancy ) had written together. Coste and Willemet reported in it a. a. about her experiences with the use of horse chestnut bark as a substitute for cinchona bark. They gave the horse chestnut bark in the fever-free interval of the alternating fever either as a decoction with the addition of licorice root or as a latwerge with the addition of centaury , hazel root and peach blossom syrup . Of fifteen patients with three- and four-day fever, eleven were cured without relapse within eight to ten days. Resisted three four-day fevers, two of which resulted in dropsy and death, although the cinchona bark was also used. A patient who had neither horse chestnut bark nor cinchona bark healed was restored by simply changing the air. Even William Cullen in Edinburgh had watched the bark of horse chestnut has been used successfully in addition to the bark of the ash as cinchona replacement.

In the Prussian Pharmacopoeia (3rd edition 1799) horse chestnut bark was listed and in the commentary on this official pharmacopoeia by Karl Wilhelm Juch (1805) it was touted as an excellent substitute for cinchona bark. From the sixth edition of the Prussian Pharmacopoeia (1848) the horse chestnut bark was eliminated. In two recipes from Hufeland's poor pharmacopoeia (1810-1836) a combination of horse chestnut bark with willow bark (Cortex Salicis) and with the additives calamus root (Radix Calami) , gentian root (Radix Gentiana) and clove root (Radix Caryophyllatae) was used as a substitute for the Touted cinchona bark. Jean-Louis Alibert mentioned horse chestnut bark from 1814 (third edition) in his Nouveaux éléments de thérapeutique et de matière médicale . In the great Parisian hospitals, including in the Hôpital Saint-Louis , which he directed , the bark had been tested as a substitute for cinchona bark without any success in the treatment of patients with mild three-day fever . Vomiting, stomach burning sensation, intestinal colic, burning sensation when urinating, facial swelling and leg edema were observed as side effects.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Augsburg Pharmacopoeia . Augsburg 1734, Taxa p. 32 ( digitized versionhttp: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3D~GB%3D~IA%3D~MDZ%3D%0A11195353_00418~SZ%3D~ double-sided%3D~LT%3D~PUR%3D )
  2. ↑ Württemberg Pharmacopoeia . Stuttgart 1741, Taxa p. 12 ( digitized versionhttp: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3D~GB%3D~IA%3D~MDZ%3D%0A10213827_00448~SZ%3D~ double-sided%3D~LT%3D~PUR%3D )
  3. ↑ Taxa pharmaceutica universalis . Nuremberg 1747 ( digitized versionhttp: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3D~GB%3D~IA%3D~MDZ%3D%0A11069315_00886~SZ%3D~ double-sided%3D~LT%3D~PUR%3D )
  4. ^ Friedrich August Flückiger . The cinchona bark shown in pharmacognostic terms . Gärtner, Berlin 1883 (digitized version) .
  5. ^ Friedrich August Flückiger. Name and history . In: Koehler's medicinal plants . Eugen Köhler, Gera 1887, Volume I, No 79: Cinchona (digitized version)
  6. ^ Gian Jacopo Zannichelli (1695–1759). Lettera intorno alle Facolta dell 'Ippocastano (July 31, 1733) . In: Raccolta d'Opuscoli scientifici , Volume 10 (1734), pp. 185-213 (200) (digitized version )
  7. ^ Paul Heinrich Gerhard Möhring in: Commercio literario Norimbergensi , 1736, p. 20
  8. ^ Albrecht von Haller (editor). Onomatologia medica completa or Medicinisches Lexicon which explains all names and artificial words which are peculiar to the science of medicine and pharmacists art clearly and completely [...]. Gaumische Handlung, Ulm / Frankfurt am Main / Leipzig 1755, column 336 (digitized version )
  9. ^ H. Wilhelm Peipers. De cortice Hippocastani . Duisburg 1763 (digitized version) .
  10. ^ Wilhelm Heinrich Sebastian Bucholz . De cortice hippocastani eiusque sale method Garrayana parato . In: Nova Acta Physico-Medica Academiae Caesareae Leopoldino-Carolino Naturae Curiosum . Volume 4 (1770), pp. 264–269 (digitized version ) --- Treatise on the wild chestnut tree bark and the salts prepared from it in the Garyian way . In: New Hamburg magazine, or continuation of collected writings from nature research, general urban and rural economy and the pleasant sciences in general . Volume 10, Item 55 (1771), pp. 431–452 (digitized version )
  11. ^ Johan Andreas Murray . Apparatus medicaminum tam simplicium quam praeparatorum et compositorum in praxeos adiumentum consideratus . Dieterich, Gottingae, Volume IV (1787), pp. 62–76 (digitized version) --- Ludwig Christian Seger (translator). The Lord Joh. Andr. Murray D. Knight of the royal. Swedish Wasaordens, ord. Prof. the Medic. and directors of the royal. offered. Gartens zu Göttingen ... Arzney supply or instructions for practical knowledge of simple, prepared and mixed remedies . Princely orphanage bookstore, Volume IV Braunschweig 1788, pp. 70–85 (digitized version )
  12. ^ Jean François Coste (1741-1819) and Rémi Willemet . Essais Botaniques, chimiques et pharmaceutiques, sur quelques plantes indigénes, substitées avec succès, à des végétaux exotiques, auxquels on a joint des observations médicinales sur les mêmes objets . Veuve Leclerc, Nancy 1778, p. 57 Du maronnier d'Inde (digitized version ) --- Coste's and Willemet's botanical, chemical and pharmaceutical experiments on the finest native plants, which have been used with advantage instead of foreign ones in medicine: along with medicinal ones Observations and experiences. An award typeface awarded by the Academy of Sciences in Lyon. Translated from French, augmented with notes and new experiences . Köhler, Leipzig 1792, p. 72 The Roßkastanienbaum (digitized version )
  13. ↑ William Cullen . Lectures on the materia medica. Lowndes, London 1772, p. 217 (digitized version) --- German. Johann Dietrich Philipp Christian Ebeling (1759–1795). Weygand, Leipzig 1781, p. 221 (digitized version)
  14. ↑ Pharmacopoea Borussica 1799 (3rd edition), p. 18 Cortex Hippocastani (digitized version ) --- Karl Wilhelm Juch. Pharmacopoea Borussica, 3rd ed . 1805, p. 37 Cortex Hippocastani (digitized version )
  15. ^ Friedrich Mohr. Commentary on the Prussian Pharmacopoeia . 1849, Volume II, p. 477: Register (digitized version)
  16. ^ Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland . Poor Pharmacopoeia , 3rd edition 1818, p. 50: Decoctum Chinae factitiae (digital copy ) ; P. 60: Pulvis Chinae factitius (digitized version ) . More on this on pp. 30–31 (under Cortex Chinae flavae s. Regiae ) (digitized version )
  17. ^ Jean-Louis Alibert . Nouveaux éléments de thérapeutique et de matière médicale. Suivis d'un nouvel essai sur l'art de formuler. Crapart, Paris 3rd edition 1814, Volume I, pp. 93–95 (digitized version )