Nicholas Hundley and Dr. Christopher Lund, Spanish and Portuguese
In 1562, the Portuguese physician Garcia da Orta published a book called Colloquies on the simples and drugs and medicinal things of India. Having lived in Goa many years and observed the medicinal uses of various plants and healing strategies of the Indians and Arabs, as well as having heard of healing strategies in more distant lands such as China and Java, Orta felt a special need to share his knowledge with the Western world. Written as an interview of the physician conducted by an imaginary character, Orta’s work sets forth the names, occurrences, and uses of many of the plants used as medicine in that area of the world.
Orta’s work was re-published in 1891 in two volumes and annotated by Conde de Ficalho, who did well in identifying the plants with their modern scientific names and clarifying vague passages. Clements Markham translated the work into English and published it in London in 1913, probably more to make it available for its historical value as an early scientific text than for its intrinsic value as a source of new medicines.
Plant medicines from indigenous knowledge sources are an important part of drug discovery, but this source has also been largely under-utilized. Sadly, indigenous knowledge of plant uses is being lost at a rapid pace along with the habitats of the plants themselves. The research I am conducting will compare and contrast the medicinal uses of plants as described by Orta with their modern usage by traditional healers, as well as with research published in scientific journals on the in vitro and in vivo effects of these plants. Hopefully, new leads will be found which can point researchers toward effective drug discovery.
I am currently in the process of combing through the volumes for the descriptions of plant uses in diseases, summarizing the passages, and marking where these descriptions can be found again for future comparison. Twenty-five of the fifty-nine chapters have been summarized and annotated, and I have done preliminary research on the current uses of the plants. I have been using mainly the Protuguese version, since the English translation omits important information and at times is mistranslated. Still, it is often difficult to pinpoint exactly what Orta means when he uses certain archaic terms and vague syntax. I will need to locate more published materials on the traditional uses of these plants, and I suspect I will need to contact Indian universities to locate some of these sources in order to do comparisons.
I have been excited to find that for many of these plants, research is being actively performed and they are often found to be wonderfully effective both in vivo and in vitro for many illnesses. Since plant medicine is a relatively small branch of scientific study with difficult-to-find knowledge resources, this study will provide needed information to researchers in the field of pharmacognosy of plants. I plan to publish my results online for easy access. I am also excited to do laboratory research on the plants myself—should I find specific plants that are within the capabilities and interests of my lab to perform experiments on.