Traditional Mediterranean and European herbal medicines.

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE Written history allows tracing back Mediterranean and European medical traditions to Greek antiquity. The epidemiological shift triggered by the rise of modern medicine and industrialization is reflected in contemporary reliance and preferences for certain herbal medicines. MATERIALS AND METHODS We sketch the development and transmission of written herbal medicine through Mediterranean and European history and point out the opportunity to connect with modern traditions. RESULTS An ethnopharmacological database linking past and modern medical traditions could serve as a tool for crosschecking contemporary ethnopharmacological field-data as well as a repository for data mining. Considering that the diachronic picture emerging from such a database has an epidemiological base this could lead to new hypotheses related to evolutionary medicine. CONCLUSION The advent of systems pharmacology and network pharmacology opens new perspectives for studying past and current herbal medicine. Since a large part of modern drugs has its roots in ancient traditions one may expect new leads for drug development from novel systemic studies, as well as evidence for the activity of certain herbal preparations.

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