Ancient Medical Literature Research Articles

Instead of "plethysmography": "kenoseography" and "plesmonegraphy".

The recording of volume changes in health and disease has from old been designated as "Plethysmography". This was supposed to be a correct term for the recording (graphein) of an increase in volume (plethysmos). The present paper shows that the choice of this term was not felicitous, and suggests an alternative. The first "plethysmographic" recordings are ascribed to Glisson (1622) and Swammerdam (1737). Since Glisson and Swammerdam did, in fact, record the volume of muscle to be constant on contraction, their measurements should probably have been referred to as "isography". This, however, is merely a historical matter. Presently venous outflow measurement is a common procedure to establish the diagnosis of deep vein thrombosis. Venous outflow is determined by recording the decrease in volume of a limb which occurs after release of a congestion cuff. As this is quite the opposite of what is meant by "Plethysmography", another indication is needed for this examination. It appears that a suitable alternative can be taken from ancient Greek medical literature.

A Study on the Mechanism of the Hypotensive Activity ofBuddleja asiatica(Newarpati)

AbstractThe plant Buddleja asiatica Loureiro (family Buddlejiaceae) is known as “Newarpati” in the vernacular. It grows abundantly in the sub-Himalayan hill tracts. It has been described in the ancient medical literature to be useful in a variety of skin disorders and has also been used as an abortifacient (Chopra et al., 1956). Recently Singh (1977), while studying its antifertility and general pharmacological activities, found that the alcoholic extract obtained from the leaves of this plant produced a persistent and prolonged fall of blood pressure in pentobarbitone-anaesthetised dogs and cats. The present study was carried out to analyze the mechanisms involved for this hypotensive response.

Evidence of rheumatoid arthritis in ancient india

The scarcity of references in ancient medical literature to any disease resembling rheumatoid arthritis (RA) has led many Western rheumatologists to believe that rheumatoid arthritis is a disease of relatively recent origin. In a recent paper on this problem, Short traces the first adequate description of what was probably rheumatoid arthritis to Thomas Sydenham (1624-1689) and emphasizes that European and Greek medical literature before Sydenham's time may have confused gout and other forms of polyarthritis as manifestations of the same disease (1). Studies in human paleopathology have as yet produced no convincing evidence for the existenct of RA in ancient human remains, but Short suggested that a study of the ancient medical literature of the Eastern civilizations may provide some new information on the true antiquity of rheumatoid arthritis.

Some descriptions of leprosy in the ancient medical literature of Ceylon.

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Bejel: The endemic syphilis of the euphrates arab

1. 1. The settled population of the Middle Euphrates valley comprises 5,000 Christians, 50,000 townspeople, and 145,000 seminomad Bedouin villagers. A desert barrier effectually isolated this region in the past, and communication with the outside world is still difficult. Social and economic barriers separate the three groups from each other. 2. 2. Venereal practices and diseases are found only among Christians and townspeople. That they are not found among Redouins is due to economic and social rather than moral factors. 3. 3. Syphilis is the most common disease of the region, and it appears in two forms, franghi which is venereally acquired, and bejel which is acquired in childhood. Franghi—comparable in all respects to western syphilis—is found among Christians and townspeople, bejel among townspeople and Bedouins. Seventy-five per cent. of the adult Bedouin villagers say they have had bejel, and from a consideration of the histories, the positive serological reactions, and the syphilitic lesions and scars, it is permissible to conclude that over 90 per cent. of the adult Bedouins are syphilitic. 4. 4. Bejel is highly contagious and is usually contracted by and from children. It is an afebrile malady with little effect upon the general constitution. It exhibits mucocutaneous and periosteal lesions in the early cases, which may persist for a year; after a latent period which may last for many years, late lesions appear in most individuals, in the form of mucocutaneous relapse or gummata of the skin and the nasal and long bones. Juxta-articular nodules, plantar hyperkeratoses, depigmentations, and alopecia may be found in late cases. The nervous and cardiovascular systems and the viscera escape serious damage. 5. 5. The children of parents who have had bejel—like the children of congenitally syphilitic parents—usually escape prenatal infection, and the dystrophics of congenital syphilis are absent. Bejel does not decrease fertility nor increase the rate of miscarriage; the child mortality rate is not increased. 6. 6. Spirochaetes of the characteristic morphology and motility of Treponema pallidum are found constantly and abundantly in the lesions of freshly acquired bejel, and in the late cases of mucocutaneous relapse. Bejel is uniformly accompanied by positive precipitation and complement fixation reactions of the blood; 75 per cent. of adult Bedouins have positive serological reactions. 7. 7. Bejel as it exists in the childhood reservoir is usually untreated, and passes without restraint from child to child or child to adult. It is, therefore, a biologically free disease, unrestricted by any barrier, unmodified by any treatment, and favoured by general crowding and uncleanliness. Cure of the individual bejel patient is not a practical objective. The therapeutic objective in this endemic syphilis should be not individual cure, but prevention of new cases in the community. This can be done by healing the open lesions—abolishing the infectiousness—of the cases already present. This objective can be secured with bismuth alone at low cost, without risk to the patient, and in a time schedule adapted to the temperament of the Arab. Bismuth is less toxic and more effective than mercury; it is more suitable to the conditions of bejel than the arsenicals, and also easier of administration, less hazardous and much cheaper. 8. 8. There is undoubtedly much syphilis of the bejel type in the world, but it has often been confused with venereally acquired syphilis or with yaws. Purely non-venereal, acquired in childhood and free from admixture with either venereal syphilis or yaws, bejel is a clinical entity meeting the retention of its distinctive name. 9. 9. Bejel occupies in many respects an intermediate position between syphilis and yaws, and demonstrates that the more syphilis resembles yaws in epidemiology, the more it resembles yaws clinically. At the present stage of knowledge bejel offers suggestive but not conclusive evidence in favour of the identity of syphilis and yaws. 10. 10. Bejel has the character of an ancient disease; the two hypothess of its origin are considered. It may be that syphilis of ancient times was like modern Bejel, in which case the search for references to venereal syphilis in ancient medical literature is beside the point. References to a disease resembling bejel might be found among the ancient descriptions of childhood exanthemata. 11. 11. The view is advanced that bejel is the archetype of syphilis. It is suggested that the similar immunology and pathology of bejel and yaws stem from their non-venereal epidemiology. It may be that the urban portion of the human race, by imposing a venereal epidemiology upon the spirochaete, has changed the clinical course and the pathology of syphilis, producing in civilized countries a far more serious disease than the original syphilis of rural children.

On the treatment of schizophrenia by malaria inoculation. Wiesel and Markuszewicz (Warsz. Czasop. Lek., 1927, no. 7)

Already in ancient medical literature there are indications of the beneficial influence of infectious diseases on the course of psychoses. In 1879, Rosenblum (Odessa) was the first to inoculate the mentally ill with relapsing typhus and in 22 cases had 11 cures and 3 improvements (the remaining 8 cases were unchanged). In 1917, Wagner Juregg began inoculating malaria in progressive paralysis. Repeated observations of schizophrenics who recovered clinically under the influence of accidental infection (sore throat, typhus) led Wiesel and Markuszewicz to test malaria vaccination in 46 schizophrenics, of whom 27 had already completed observations.