The causal dependence of present plant knowledge on herbals--contemporary medicinal plant use in Campania (Italy) compared to Matthioli (1568)
- PMID: 20658771
- DOI: 10.1016/j.jep.2010.05.021
The causal dependence of present plant knowledge on herbals--contemporary medicinal plant use in Campania (Italy) compared to Matthioli (1568)
Abstract
Aim of the study: Plant use has been the subject of many codices, documents and books and still is the subject of many scientific articles, trivial books and brochures. These texts, both historical and recent, exert a strong influence on local plant use, a means of knowledge transmission in particular European studies neglect to consider. Therefore, we determine the causal influence of historical texts on present medicinal plant knowledge using the example of Matthioli (1568) and contemporary ethnobotanical literature from Campania.
Materials and methods: We used Bayesian statistical inference and in particular the Bayesian Additive Regression Trees (BART) model to determine the causal effect of Matthioli on contemporary medicinal plant use in Campania.
Results: The estimation of the average increment of finding a plant species mentioned for a certain use category caused by Matthioli is about 20%, conditionally on the available data. Matthioli's effect is not negligible and lies between 14 and 25% with a high probability.
Conclusions: Studies on contemporary medicinal plant use in Europe over the last two to three decades still include the knowledge of the texts from the Renaissance and the classical writers. To what extent the remaining 80% contain autochthonous knowledge is difficult to assess. Considering the long-lasting effect of Matthioli, more recent books, brochures and newspapers very likely also exerted an influence. As well, television and radio reports on the results of pharmacological and clinical studies and, more recently, the world wide web show an ever-increasing influence.
Copyright 2010 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
Similar articles
-
Is there nothing new under the sun? The influence of herbals and pharmacopoeias on ethnobotanical traditions in Albacete (Spain).J Ethnopharmacol. 2017 Jan 4;195:96-117. doi: 10.1016/j.jep.2016.11.040. Epub 2016 Nov 26. J Ethnopharmacol. 2017. PMID: 27894973
-
The use of the local flora in Switzerland: a comparison of past and recent medicinal plant knowledge.J Ethnopharmacol. 2014;151(1):253-64. doi: 10.1016/j.jep.2013.10.035. Epub 2013 Nov 6. J Ethnopharmacol. 2014. PMID: 24211393
-
Quantitative methods in ethnobotany and ethnopharmacology: considering the overall flora--hypothesis testing for over- and underused plant families with the Bayesian approach.J Ethnopharmacol. 2011 Sep 1;137(1):837-43. doi: 10.1016/j.jep.2011.07.002. Epub 2011 Jul 7. J Ethnopharmacol. 2011. PMID: 21767623
-
Techniques: Bioprospecting historical herbal texts by hunting for new leads in old tomes.Trends Pharmacol Sci. 2004 Sep;25(9):494-8. doi: 10.1016/j.tips.2004.07.003. Trends Pharmacol Sci. 2004. PMID: 15559252 Review.
-
Back to the roots: A quantitative survey of herbal drugs in Dioscorides' De Materia Medica (ex Matthioli, 1568).Phytomedicine. 2016 Sep 15;23(10):1043-52. doi: 10.1016/j.phymed.2016.06.016. Epub 2016 Jun 23. Phytomedicine. 2016. PMID: 27444350 Review.
Cited by
-
A Bayesian non-parametric modeling to estimate student response to ICT investment.J Appl Stat. 2016 Feb 24;43(14):2627-2642. doi: 10.1080/02664763.2016.1142946. eCollection 2016. J Appl Stat. 2016. PMID: 38818089
-
A systematic methodology to assess the identity of plants in historical texts: A case study based on the Byzantine pharmacy text John the Physician's Therapeutics.J Ethnopharmacol. 2024 Mar 25;322:117622. doi: 10.1016/j.jep.2023.117622. Epub 2023 Dec 19. J Ethnopharmacol. 2024. PMID: 38128894 Free PMC article.
-
Remnants from the Past: From an 18th Century Manuscript to 21st Century Ethnobotany in Valle Imagna (Bergamo, Italy).Plants (Basel). 2023 Jul 24;12(14):2748. doi: 10.3390/plants12142748. Plants (Basel). 2023. PMID: 37514363 Free PMC article.
-
Trends of Medicinal Plant Use over the Last 2000 Years in Central Europe.Plants (Basel). 2022 Dec 27;12(1):135. doi: 10.3390/plants12010135. Plants (Basel). 2022. PMID: 36616265 Free PMC article.
-
Medicinal Plants Used Traditionally for Skin Related Problems in the South Balkan and East Mediterranean Region-A Review.Front Pharmacol. 2022 Jul 5;13:936047. doi: 10.3389/fphar.2022.936047. eCollection 2022. Front Pharmacol. 2022. PMID: 35865952 Free PMC article. Review.
Publication types
MeSH terms
Substances
LinkOut - more resources
Full Text Sources
Medical
Research Materials