The First Drug Appeared During 140-130 BC

The First Drug Appeared During 140-130 BC.
Archeologists investigating an old shipwreck off the seaside of Tuscany report they have stumbled upon a rare find: a tightly closed tin container with well-preserved c physic dating back to about 140-130 BC. A multi-disciplinary tandem analyzed fragments of the green-gray tablets to decipher their chemical, mineralogical and botanical composition. The results furnish a peek into the complexity and sophistication of ancient therapeutics.

So "The research highlights the continuity from then until now in the use of some substances for the healing of human diseases," said archeologist and lead researcher Gianna Giachi, a chemist at the Archeological Heritage of Tuscany, in Florence, Italy. "The study also shows the dolour that was taken in choosing complex mixtures of products - olive oil, pine resin, starch - in call for to get the desired therapeutic effect and to help in the preparation and assiduity of medicine".

The medicines and other materials were found together in a tight space and are thought to have been originally packed in a breast that seems to have belonged to a physician, said Alain Touwaide, scientific director of the Institute for the Preservation of Medical Traditions, in Washington, DC Touwaide is a fellow of the multi-disciplinary team that analyzed the materials. The tablets contained an iron oxide, as well as starch, beeswax, pine resin and a compound of plant-and-animal-derived lipids, or fats.

Touwaide said botanists on the dig into team discovered that the tablets also contained carrot, radish, parsley, celery, ungovernable onion and cabbage - simple plants that would be found in a garden. Giachi said that the amalgam and shape of the tablets suggest they may have been used to treat the eyes, as the case may be as an eyewash. But Touwaide, who compared findings from the analysis to what has been understood from ancient texts about medicine, said the metallic component found in the tablets was doubtless used not just for eyewashes but also to treat wounds.

The development is evidence of the effectiveness of some natural medicines that have been used for literally thousands of years. "This message potentially represents essentially several centuries of clinical trials. If natural medicine is occupied for centuries and centuries, it's not because it doesn't work".