Why is there less talk about medicinal herbs, herbal medicines , herbs , mushrooms in west today

[Peterkin]

2 hours ago, swansont said:

If you get sick, some people will use modern medicine if such treatment is available to them, which means they are not using "traditional" medicine.

That's right. You're using the same medicines in new forms and combinations, or else their synthetic counterparts. In the 20th century, they were usually advertised as medical breakthroughs and scientific discoveries. 

I was never attached  to the word 'traditional'; don't see why it should figure so largely. However, as some people are partial to the word, as well some of the other words with which it's associated - natural, herbal, organic - the pharmaceutical corporations that manufacture OTC remedies, vitamins and supplements obligingly put those words in their advertising of products that contain those same ingredients in a new, industrial form. 

[swansont]

34 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

That's right. You're using the same medicines in new forms and combinations, or else their synthetic counterparts. In the 20th century, they were usually advertised as medical breakthroughs and scientific discoveries. 

There are a lot of treatments that are not based on traditional medicine.

[Peterkin]

9 minutes ago, swansont said:

There are a lot of treatments that are not based on traditional medicine.

None at all. New knowledge is always growing out of previous knowledge, building on, challenging, replacing, correcting, altering as it evolves.

The word "traditional" doesn't mean anything in science, though people often interpret it as "primitive, ineffective, ignorant".  Chinese tradition doesn't mean anything in Cherokee; Italian tradition has no significance in Bali -  it only has meaning in a cultural context - and even there, it's unclear, subject to interpretation.

My remarks about the words used in advertising medications regard the perception. It follows fashion. The manufacturers do the research they do and make the drugs them make, by the processes that insure the best result for themselves. But they adjust the language of marketing to public demand: they create whatever perception is trendy at the moment.

[Genady]

7 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

None at all. New knowledge is always growing out of previous knowledge, building on, challenging, replacing, correcting, altering as it evolves.

1. How replacing previous knowledge constitutes a growing out of previous knowledge?

2. How accidental discoveries are growing out of previous knowledge?

[swansont]

58 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

None at all. New knowledge is always growing out of previous knowledge, building on, challenging, replacing, correcting, altering as it evolves.

Which is not the point. Nobody has claimed otherwise.

There have been breakthrough drugs/treatments that are not distillations of remedies that existed before modern medicine.

 

[studiot]

1 hour ago, Peterkin said:

None at all. New knowledge is always growing out of previous knowledge, building on, challenging, replacing, correcting, altering as it evolves.

I disagree.

I have personal experience of a treatment that has no foundation in traditional medicine, either herbal or pharmaceutical. (although I am not sure what folks mean by traditional).

It is called photobiomodulation and I found it an effective replacement for 'traditional' NSAIDs,  - as, I understand, have others.

[beecee]

I prefer the definitions of "non conventional medicine" like homeopathy, acupuncture,  moxibustion,  cupping, etc etc, which are often formulated around philosophical, religious and ideological concepts,  and lack any scientific validation. They also can run counter to modern rationally "empirical evidenced medicine".

eg: https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/homeopathy

extracts:

Is homeopathy effective?

There is currently no evidence to support the effectiveness of homeopathy to prevent or treat any disease.

Is homeopathy an alternative to childhood immunisation?

Conventional vaccines undergo rigorous testing to prove both safety and effectiveness, whereas homeopathic preparations do not. There is no evidence that homeopathic preparations provide protection against childhood infectious diseases.

Is homeopathic treatment safe?

In general, it is hard to know whether or not homeopathic preparations are safe. They don’t go through the rigorous testing for safety and effectiveness that other medicines are required to undergo through the Australian Government’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA).

They might be safe if used as well as conventional medicine. They are not safe if used instead of conventional medicines.

Is homeopathy an alternative to medical treatment?

The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), which is Australia’s main medical advisory body, has concluded that homeopathy should not be used to treat health conditions that are chronic or serious, or could become serious.

2 hours ago, Peterkin said:

I was never attached  to the word 'traditional'; 

Agreed. I prefer as I defined above, "non conventional scientifically unvalidated medicine" and  "empirical based evidenced medicine" 

Edited March 13, 2022 by beecee

[Peterkin]

4 hours ago, Genady said:

How replacing previous knowledge constitutes a growing out of previous knowledge?

By overturning an old theory on the basis of new data. When you're overturning a theory, you don't throw away all of previous knowledge and start from scratch. You apply information from a parallel investigation, a paper that was published more recently or another discipline; you repeat the experiment with a recently invented measuring device or with a variable that had not been used before. You still apply the currently accepted methods (previous knowledge), in the existing laboratories (previous knowledge) with the existing tools (previous knowledge), according to the same principles (previous knowledge) and using the same formulas (previous knowledge): you join up two dots that already exist, but have not yet been connected. (Eureka! New knowledge that will become current knowledge as soon as it's published and previous knowledge as soon as soon as someone else, with a new insight, a new observation or a new tool challenges it.) 

4 hours ago, Genady said:

How accidental discoveries are growing out of previous knowledge?

The same way deliberate ones do. Nobody just walks down the street and has an electromagnet or a hypo of penicillin fall on him out of the sky. It's a very limited kind of accident that can only happen in a particular environment. Somebody doing science (not necessarily an accredited professional scientist) is trying to figure something out. They set up the experiment (according to existing standards) with the (previously invented) equipment  and apply the accepted (previously known) methods. But the result - through oversight, miscalculation or a chance occurrence - is unexpected. So the researcher - or somebody else, if the original researcher writes the accident off as a failure - investigates that unforeseen result and arrives at a new invention. https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/top-5-accidental-inventions-discoveries

3 hours ago, swansont said:

There have been breakthrough drugs/treatments that are not distillations of remedies that existed before modern medicine.

What is the starting date of  modern medicine? Were all the chemicals thrown away and all the formulas burned? 

3 hours ago, studiot said:

I have personal experience of a treatment that has no foundation in traditional medicine, either herbal or pharmaceutical. (although I am not sure what folks mean by traditional).

 That's why I don't use the word 'traditional'. A tradition may go back seven years or seven thousand. There is no brand new beginning in the substitution of one kind of treatment for another: each kind has its roots in previous knowledge; each kinds contributes to future knowledge. Doctors are all time improving therapies and switching remedies when a better one comes along or the old one doesn't work (and sometimes even when it does, because the new thing is trendy). Heliotherapy is probably as old as aspirin, but lasers are kind of traditional by now, too:

Quote

Low-level laser (light) therapy (formerly abbreviated as LLLT) is approaching its 50^th anniversary. LLLT was discovered in 1967 by Endre Mester at the Semmelweis Medical University in Hungary.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5215795/

But he  wouldn't have been able to do it if Campbell had not already used it on a malignant tumour, and he could not have done it without Townes, who could not have got very far without Einstein, who owed it to Planck.... 

 

   

Edited March 14, 2022 by Peterkin

[Genady]

12 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

By overturning an old theory on the basis of new data. When you're overturning a theory, you don't throw away all of previous knowledge and start from scratch. You apply information from a parallel investigation, a paper that was published more recently or another discipline; you repeat the experiment with a recently invented measuring device or with a variable that had not been used before. You still apply the currently accepted methods (previous knowledge), in the existing laboratories (previous knowledge) with the existing tools (previous knowledge), according to the same principles (previous knowledge) and using the same formulas (previous knowledge): you join up two dots already exist, but have not yet been connected Eureka! New knowledge that will become current knowledge as soon as it's published and previous knowledge as soon as soon as someone else, with a new insight, a new observation or a new tool challenges it.  

 

The same way deliberate ones do. Nobody just walks down the street and has an electromagnet or a hypo pf penicillin fall on him out of the sky. It's a very limited kind of accident that can only happen in a particular kind of environment. Somebody doing science (not necessarily an accredited professional scientist) is trying to figure something out. They set up the experiment (according to previously used methods) with the (previously invented) equipment  and apply the accepted (previously known) methods. But the result - through oversight, miscalculation or a chance occurrence - is unexpected. So the researcher - or somebody else, if the original researcher writes the accident off as a failure - investigates that unforeseen result and arrives at a new invention. https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/top-5-accidental-inventions-discoveries

What is the starting date of  modern medicine?

 That's why I don't use the word 'traditional'. A tradition may go back seven years or seven thousand. There is no brand new beginning in the substitution of one kind of treatment for another: each kind has its roots in previous knowledge. Doctors are all time improving therapies and switching another remedy when a better one comes along or the old one doesn't work (and sometimes even when it does, because the new thing is trendy). Heliotherapy is probably as old as aspirin, but lasers are kind of traditional by now, too:

But he  wouldn't have been able to do it if Campbell had not already used it on a malignant tumour, and he could not have done it without Townes, who could not have got very far without Einstein, who owed it to Planck.... 

 

   

I see, the key is that the previous knowledge may be any previous knowledge. In this case, it is just trivial. For example, to get a new knowledge we use a language, which is a previous knowledge.

In the specific subject matter here, a new knowledge in medicine might grow out of a previous knowledge, let's say, in astronomy. Not necessarily out of a previous knowledge in medicine. Thus, it is completely new in medicine, not related to anything existing in medicine prior to that.

[Peterkin]

42 minutes ago, Genady said:

In the specific subject matter here, a new knowledge in medicine might grow out of a previous knowledge, let's say, in astronomy.

Unlikely, but not impossible.

43 minutes ago, Genady said:

Not necessarily out of a previous knowledge in medicine.

What would you fit the new datum borrowed from astronomy into, if not an existing matrix of medical knowledge?

44 minutes ago, Genady said:

Thus, it is completely new in medicine, not related to anything existing in medicine prior to that.

Show me one example of an innovation in medicine that has no connection to previously existing medicine.

[Genady]

My point is that a new medicine is not necessarily "the same medicines in new forms and combinations, or else their synthetic counterparts," even if it was obtained using previously known methods, tools, techniques, etc.

[Peterkin]

52 minutes ago, Genady said:

I see, the key is that the previous knowledge may be any previous knowledge

There is no key, just as there is no magic bullet, just as there no great big tall stone walls between scientific disciplines or around any specialized areas of human knowledge.

 

52 minutes ago, Genady said:

For example, to get a new knowledge we use a language, which is a previous knowledge.

To learn a language you didn't know before, you use your understanding of a language you already know. To invent a new language, you use what you know about the language(s) you already speak. Yes. To get new knowledge about something else you didn't know, you use language to read or listen to people who knew something before you did, and then maybe you can add to it. To get new experience, you may not need language, but in that case, it remains subjective and nobody will ever know what you alone experienced: it does not add to the sum of human knowledge.

5 minutes ago, Genady said:

My point is that a new medicine is not necessarily "the same medicines in new forms and combinations, or else their synthetic counterparts," even if it was obtained using previously known methods, tools, techniques, etc.

Show me an example of a synthetic medication that has no counterpart or predecessor in nature.

Edited March 14, 2022 by Peterkin

[Genady]

3 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

There is no key, just as there is no magic bullet, just as there no great big tall stone walls between scientific disciplines or around any specialized areas of human knowledge.

 

To learn a language you didn't know before, you use your understanding of a language you already know. To invent a new language, you use what you know about the language(s) you already speak. Yes. 

Show me an example of a synthetic medication that has no counterpart or predecessor in nature.

In nature, or in previous medical practice?

[Peterkin]

1 minute ago, Genady said:

In nature, or in previous medical practice?

Previous medical practice will do. (Beware, there is an awful lot of it!)

[Genady]

1 minute ago, Peterkin said:

Previous medical practice will do. (Beware, there is an awful lot of it!)

Obviously, it is not my area, but let's try, for educational purposes.

How about mRNA vaccines?

[Peterkin]

https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2021/the-long-history-of-mrna-vaccines

https://the-dna-universe.com/2021/04/15/the-history-of-mrna-applications/

Quote

DNA was discovered in 1869 by Swiss researcher Friedrich Miescher, who was originally trying to study the composition of lymphoid cells (white blood cells). Instead, he isolated a new molecule he called nuclein (DNA with associated proteins) from a cell nucleus. While Miescher was the first to define DNA as a distinct molecule, several other researchers and scientists have contributed to our relative understanding of DNA as we know it today. And it wasn’t until the early 1940s that DNA’s role in genetic inheritance was even begun to be researched and understood.https://www.lunadna.com/history-of-dna/

One things leads to another, as long as somebody keeps asking questions. Nothing comes out of the blue.

[Genady]

1 minute ago, Peterkin said:

https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2021/the-long-history-of-mrna-vaccines

https://the-dna-universe.com/2021/04/15/the-history-of-mrna-applications/

One things leads to another, as long as somebody keeps asking questions. Nothing comes out of the blue.

But what is its counterpart or predecessor in the previous medical practice?

[StringJunky]

4 hours ago, Genady said:

But what is its counterpart or predecessor in the previous medical practice?

I think this is a case of just because we might not know here doesn't mean it wasn't a transfer from some older medical technique or concept. I agree with Peterkin that no idea is conceived in a vacuum.

Edited March 14, 2022 by StringJunky

[swansont]

18 hours ago, Peterkin said:

What is the starting date of  modern medicine? Were all the chemicals thrown away and all the formulas burned? 

It sort of coincided with the industrial revolution. Which predates Dalton, so I don't know that there were chemical formulas to burn.

But I'm pretty sure that they didn't know about e.g. mRNA, so some vaccines we have today are definitely not some re-imagination of a folk cure for COVID.

 

[Genady]

2 hours ago, StringJunky said:

I think this is a case of just because we might not know here doesn't mean it wasn't a transfer from some older medical technique or concept. I agree with Peterkin that no idea is conceived in a vacuum.

I also agree that every new knowledge has foundations in some previous knowledge. As @swansont also said above, nobody claimed otherwise.

However, that doesn't necessarily mean that every new medicine is an older medicine in a new form, combination, or synthesis.

The later doesn't follow from the former.

For example, a new medicine can be born in a non-medical, e.g. biochemical research.

Edited March 14, 2022 by Genady

[studiot]

9 hours ago, Peterkin said:

Show me an example of a synthetic medication that has no counterpart or predecessor in nature.

I already did, but you chose to reply about something different.

Incidentally the first use of light therapy was probably the first stone age man to 'sit in the sun' to get better.

The 1903 Nobel for Medicine went to Dr Niels Finsen for attempting to use 'concentrated light'  -  a special light source - to cure smallpox and TB.

However none of these had access to lasers.

In the 1960s Mester in Hungary was attempting to cure carcinomas with a forerunner of laser heat therapy.

At the same time NASA was investigating the safety of lasers for non medical reasons.
Their breakthrough that non-heat type lasers had therapeutical effects was not widely reported until 2001.
This was the origination of PMB.

PMB does not 'cure' anything it works entirely differently in ways we now understand.
A pharmaceutical analog would be the new drugs that have been 'engineered in the last 15 or so years following out greater understanding of human biochemisty, such as ibrutinib.

 

Edit

 

I would like to add a note to those who seem to have the idea that drugs or other treatments have the same effect on anybody and everybody.

This is not the case.
I don't know of any treatment that works universally.

So we cannot say that drug A works but herb B does not, only that drug A works for some people (perhaps a wider range of people) than herb B.

Side effects are a good way to demonstrate this.

My wife likes kiwi fruit, but they make her lips swell so she can't eat them.

I am allergic to penecillin, but it cures many other people of many other conditions.

Ibrutinib is only of use to certain genetic types (apparantly)

 

And so on.

 

Edited March 14, 2022 by studiot

[Sensei]

On 3/13/2022 at 5:12 AM, nec209 said:

Why so many people in west view medicinal herbs, herbal medicines , herbs , mushrooms less these days than in the past or other countries?

In the early XIX century, the first real chemists extracted active ingredients from medicinal herbs, determined their chemical formula, and learned how to make them artificially in the laboratory. Later, they learned how these compounds react in the body and how they work to produce a healing effect. This made it possible to search for alternative compounds with similar effects and to design entirely new compounds with more potent effects.

  

On 3/13/2022 at 5:12 AM, nec209 said:

It seems today medicinal herbs, herbal medicines , herbs , mushrooms are viewed has snake oil medicine or mixed results today.

Indeed, if you don't know what their chemical compounds are, what their chemical formula is, and how they work in the body, it is controversial to use something that has so many unknowns.. Faith that they work play a large role in healing ("placebo effect").

Compounds from herbs that really work have undergone clinical trials, such as a blind experiment, double-blind experiment

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blinded_experiment

 

Edited March 14, 2022 by Sensei

[beecee]

21 hours ago, beecee said:

Agreed. I prefer as I defined above, "non conventional scientifically unvalidated medicine" and  "empirical based evidenced medicine" 

And of course there is a third category that has come to mind...Quackery

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miasma_theory

 

The miasma theory (also called the miasmatic theory) is an obsolete medical theory that held that diseases—such as cholera, chlamydia, or the Black Death—were caused by a miasma (μίασμα, Ancient Greek for 'pollution'), a noxious form of "bad air", also known as night air. The theory held that epidemics were caused by miasma, emanating from rotting organic matter.[1] Though miasma theory is typically associated with the spread of contagious diseases, some academics in the early nineteenth century suggested that the theory extended to other conditions as well, e.g. one could become obese by inhaling the odor of food.[2]

The miasma theory was advanced by Hippocrates in the fourth century B.C.[3] and accepted from ancient times in Europe and China. The theory was eventually abandoned by scientists and physicians after 1880, replaced by the germ theory of disease: specific germs, not miasma, caused specific diseases. However, cultural beliefs about getting rid of odor made the clean-up of waste a high priority for cities.

[Peterkin]

17 hours ago, Genady said:

But what is its counterpart or predecessor in the previous medical practice?

The study of cells, and before that, microbes. before the microscope, they were invisible. Once they became visible, questions were asked, guesses were made, hypotheses were put forward, experiments were conducted. most of them produced nothing but a little more knowledge, a little more understanding and better questions. Some yielded fruitful avenues of research, which mostly failed and occasionally succeeded. 

11 hours ago, swansont said:

It [the starting date of modern medicine] sort of coincided with the industrial revolution. Which predates Dalton, so I don't know that there were chemical formulas to burn.

  There were formulas, but the significance to medicine of those formulas to medicine were not yet known; all the dots had not yet been connected. (PS - they still haven't. modern medicine is still a work in progress, building new knowledge on old.)

Okay, so what medical knowledge did every western industrial nation eradicate between  1760 and 1840?

Did Dalton ignore all of the research into heredity that had gone before? Did he dismiss all of the earlier researches into light and optics?  Did he consider all foregoing studies of anatomy as too primitive to bother with?

12 hours ago, swansont said:

But I'm pretty sure that they didn't know about e.g. mRNA, so some vaccines we have today are definitely not some re-imagination of a folk cure for COVID.

Of course not. Knowledge about COVID descended from the plagues, smallpox, typhoid, leprosy and TB; quarantine practice --- the various other influenzas and childhood diseases to which people build natural immunity --- immunity ---- optics --- microorganisms --- heredity --- genetics --- vaccination ---- mechanics of delivering immunity.  It doesn't start or end anywhere: new knowledge emerges from old knowledge and it keeps growing.

11 hours ago, Genady said:

For example, a new medicine can be born in a non-medical, e.g. biochemical research.

Sure, as long there is crossover between disciplines. Otherwise, whatever doesn't fit the agenda of a researcher in one field - however valuable it might be in another field - is discarded.  In ancient times, there was no wall between disciplines, and therefore probably less wasted knowledge. Of course, we have such a wealth and plethora of knowledge now that we can afford profligacy. 

11 hours ago, Genady said:

However, that doesn't necessarily mean that every new medicine is an older medicine in a new form, combination, or synthesis.

You're really stuck on that phrase. Okay. What if I concede that a lot of the chemistry of 'modern' medicine was unknown to the makers of ancient medicine, and that not all recent synthetic drugs are analogous to those found in nature? Would you come half way and admit that the chemistry of the human body and the chemical ingredients of drugs that affect the human body have not changed in the past 5000 years?

9 hours ago, studiot said:

I already did, but you chose to reply about something different.

The evolution of laser treatments? Sorry. I guess I didn't understand what the real subject was.  

[studiot]

1 hour ago, Peterkin said:

13 hours ago, swansont said:

It [the starting date of modern medicine] sort of coincided with the industrial revolution. Which predates Dalton, so I don't know that there were chemical formulas to burn.

  There were formulas, but the significance to medicine of those formulas to medicine were not yet known; all the dots had not yet been connected. (PS - they still haven't. modern medicine is still a work in progress, building new knowledge on old.)

Okay, so what medical knowledge did every western industrial nation eradicate between  1760 and 1840?

Did Dalton ignore all of the research into heredity that had gone before? Did he dismiss all of the earlier researches into light and optics?  Did he consider all foregoing studies of anatomy as too primitive to bother with?

Before the later part of the 19th century chemical formulae wer recipes or prescriptions, they did not have the form we understand today.

Neither correct atomic and molecular weights were available before 1850 (following the death of (Berzelius in 1848), nor was the concept of valency properly establish until 1865 (Hofmann). Valency was also confused with 'chemical affinity'.

 

There is a fascinating account of the story of both the successes and failures during the development of this in a book by a one time oganic and pharmaceutical chemist, now a lecturer at London University and also the editor of The dictionary of Natural Products, John Buckingham.

Chasing the Molecule  :   Sutton Publications 2004.