Joomla! site syndication http://caribbeanherbalcluster.com/main 2010-09-05T02:34:51+01:00 http://caribbeanherbalcluster.com/main http://caribbeanherbalcluster.com/main/images/M_images/joomla_rss.png text/html 2007-06-14T16:39:06+01:00 http://caribbeanherbalcluster.com/main http://caribbeanherbalcluster.com/main/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12&Itemid=2 Welcome to the newly launched Caribbean Herbal Cluster Website. We hope you find it a refreshing source of healing and we look forward to seeing you again!Browse oursite and discover remedies and facts that will improve health and knowledge of the oldest techniques of healing made new by these modern companies!! text/html 2007-10-17T22:07:11+01:00 http://caribbeanherbalcluster.com/main http://caribbeanherbalcluster.com/main/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=13&Itemid=2 In Arabian medicine Arab physicians seem to have used nutmeg as a drug from the first centuries A.D., although just how they used it is not known. Warburg wrote that Myristica was recommended for a variety of disorders in this early period but was taken mainly for diseases of the digestive organs, from the mouth to the stomach to the intestines, to the liver and spleen, as well as for freckles and skin blotches .Later Arab physicians referred nutmeg to the class of warm and dry drugs and elaborated on its applications. By the 11th century, for instance, the spice was praised for its effect on the kidneys, was used to combat pain, vomiting, and lymphatic ailments, and was even considered aphrodisiac. According to Ainslie though, the Arabs were using nutmeg almost solely as a hepatic and tonic by the 19th century. Oddly enough, physicians of the Near East took little notice of mace until the early 1800s when they began to prescribe it as an aphrodisiac and carminative.At the present time, nutmeg is still important in this part of the world. A pharmacologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem writes : The nutmeg is used by Arabs of Israel and people of its oriental Jewish communities, especially Yemenites, as a drug of their folk medicine, as well as a spice and as an important ingredient in love-potions. It is used against vomiting and to regulate the movements of the bowels; it is good for the liver and for the spleen. It is used in the treatment of tuberculosis, against colds, fever, and, in general, respiratory ailments. It is said to be an antihelminthic and is used for that purpose. It is used against skin diseases like eczema and scabies. It is said to be effective for removing blotches from the face. To increase potentia virilis it is pounded well and added to various foods. In Indian medicine Frequent references in the Vedas to nutmeg indicate that the ancient Hindus knew of the spice from early times. They described it as warmth-producing, stimulating, and good for digestion and also used it in their medicinal preparations. Martius said that Hindu physicians prescribed it for headache, nerve fevers, cold fevers, foul breath, and intestinal weakness.In his Materia Indica of 1826, Ainslie wrote that nutmeg is considered by the natives of India as one of their most valuable medicines .... Dymock, in 1883, noted that the Moslems of western India used nutmeg as an aphrodisiac. Burkill, in 1935, stressed nutmeg's importance in Indian tonics for dysentery. According to an adviser in the Indian Ministry of Health, nutmeg is still used medicinally in India : It is prescribed as an analgesic in neuritic pains, as a sedative in highly tense nervous states, and as a sedative and anti-spasmodic in asthma. In view of its reaction resembling opium, it is used to give relief in the cough and hemoptysis of tuberculosis. In traditional Indian folk and domestic medicine, nutmeg is used in small quantities to induce hypnotic effect in irritable children. It is also administered as an hypnotic and sedative in epileptic convulsions. In Western medicine Medieval European physicians followed exactly the precepts of Arabian medicine. Consequently, they called nutmeg a warm, dry drug and recommended it for all the maladies listed earlier. Warburg wrote: The importance of nutmeg as a medicine grew hand in hand with the increase in Indian trade during the middle ages; its use spread from the Arabian Empire over Greece and Italy and soon reached central Europe. Nutmeg gradually became a genuine folk remedy, although it was most important as a major ingredient in medicines prepared according to guild rules. During the 16th and 17th centuries, Western physicians compiled the writings of earlier authorities on nutmeg. This was the great period of the herbalists, and nearly every herbal contained a summary of nutmeg's virtues.Doctors continued for some time to prescribe Myristica for intestinal illnesses, but by 1800 they realized that any of its effects were the same as those of other aromatics. Then, as modern pharmacy developed, older remedies, nutmeg among them, were relegated to positions of lower and lower priority. In summarizing the medicinal uses of the spice in 1897, Warburg wrote: Today the employment of nutmeg and mace in medicine is relatively minor. Nutmeg is now used as a stomachic, stimulant, and carminative, especially in cases of dyspepsia, intestinal catarrh and colic, and as an appetite stimulant, as well as for its ability to control flatulence.... There is an important omission in the above catalogue of nutmeg uses: sometime later in its history-perhaps as late as the 19th century - - nutmeg became known as an emmenagogue and abortifacient. This use has persisted among women into the present century; in fact, Green in 1959 reported the case of 28-year-old Virginia woman who ate 18.3 g of finely ground nutmeg in an attempt to induce the menses, which had been delayed two days . Some of the older uses of the drug may also be alive in contemporary European and American folk beliefs: McCord, for example, cited a 1962 incident in which a 41-year-old South Carolina man, on the advice of a friend, took two whole nutmegs to relieve a skin infection.Myristica remained official in the United States Pharmacopeia through U. S. P. XIII (1947). Myristica oil was kept on for several more editions, principally as a flavouring agent, but was finally dropped from U. S. P. XVII (1965).The relevance of medicinal uses of nutmeg to the present discussion of nutmeg as a narcotic is that the toxic properties of Myristica must first have been noticed when patients accidentally took overdoses.