Description

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All too often ancient herbal and other remedies have been dismissed as 'simply' folklore, of no relevance to medical science. John Riddle's approach, however, has been to explore the history of drugs with the hypothesis that ancient and medieval medicines were effective - a methodology that he expounds in the final essay (hitherto unpublished). Indeed, he shows, both from detailed case-studies and from the comparison of the listings given by classical and medieval authorities with those in modern pharmacopoeias, that our ancestors had discovered and made effective use of many of the drugs used in medicine today, from antiseptics and analgesics to oral contraceptives, even chemotherapy for cancer. There is the suggestion, therefore, that more careful examination and identification of the drugs used in the past may reveal chemicals that can be exploited anew. Central to these studies is the investigation of how a drug was used and how knowledge about it was transmitted - and perhaps also distorted in the process - from the Classical world through the Middle Ages. Les anciens rem des, phytoth rapie et autres, ont trop souvent t mis aux rangs du folklore et consid r's comme n'ayant aucun rapport avec la science m dicale. L'approche de John Riddle, cependant, a t d'explorer l'histoire des drogues, en prenant pour hypoth se l'efficacit de la m decine ancienne et m di vale - une m thodologie qu'il expose dans son dernier essai (jusqu' pr sent jamais publi ). En effet, il d montre partir de cas d' tudes d taill's et de la comparaison tablie entre les listages fournis par les autorit's antiques et m di vales et ceux des pharmacop es modernes, que nos anc atres avaient d couvert et mis bon escient l'utilisation de nombreux rem des dont se sert la m decine l'heure actuelle: des antiseptiques et analg siques, aux contraceptifs oraux et m ame jusqu' la chimioth rapie pour le cancer. Sugge.