We translated two Latin texts about scurvy. One is by Ambrosius Rhodius, who in 1635 published his doctoral thesis on scurvy. This contains aspects of 16th- and 17th-century folklore medicine. The other is a 1593 letter by Henrik Høyer (Hoierus), a German physician in Bergen, Norway. The letter states that in Norway grew a plant, Chamaemorus Norvegicus, whose berries had curative abilities agai...

Bermet is aromatic, dessert wine with especially unusual and original taste. Bermet is made exclusively from grapes from hillside vineyards of mountain Fruška Gora (Vojvodina, Serbia) and it is enriched with up to 26 aromatic, medicinal herbs. This rare wine is produced in limited quantities, only 15,000 to 20,000 bottles a year. This fact gives to the Bermet a special value and impressiveness....

BACKGROUND Artemisinin is a chemical compound extracted from the wormwood plant, Artemisia annua L. It has been shown to selectively kill cancer cells in vitro and retard the growth of implanted fibrosarcoma tumors in rats. In the present research, we investigated its mechanism of cytotoxicity to cancer cells. MATERIALS AND METHODS Molt-4 cells, in complete RPMI-1640 medium, were first incuba...

Cancer is a complex multifaceted group of more than 100 types of diseases characterized by uncontrolled cell growth, local tissue invasion and metastasis. Despite much advancement in understanding and treating cancer in the recent decades, it has remained a rampant killer across the globe. According to recent statistics, cancer accounts for about 23% of all disease-related deaths in the USA. It...

A gastronomic and medical ethnobotanical study was conducted among the Occitan communities living in Blins/Bellino and Chianale, in the upper Val Varaita, in the Piedmontese Alps, North-Western Italy, and the traditional uses of 88 botanical taxa were recorded. Comparisons with and analysis of other ethnobotanical studies previously carried out in other Piemontese and surrounding areas, show th...

Despite great international efforts, malaria still inflicts an enormous toll on human lives, especially in Africa. Throughout history, antimalarial medicines have been one of the most powerful tools in malaria control. However, the acquisition and spread of parasite strains that are resistant to multiple antimalarial drugs have become one of the greatest challenges to malaria treatment, and are...

Artemisia annua L. produce an array of complex secondary plant metabolite including artemisinin (ART), which kills the principal malarial parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, a compound current interest in treatments drug resistant malaria. However, this remain expensive and hardy available on global scale. Synthesis ART has been proved to be economically impossible. Therefore, increase yield natur...

The physiological and biochemical responses of three ecotypes of Artemisia absinthium L. from Iran were evaluated under salinity conditions. Salinity treatments were made by NaCl with EC of 0, 5, 10 and 15 dS/m.   Physiological and biochemical attributes were measured 30 days after the salt treatments imposed. Highest reduction in the shoot and root fresh weights was observed in the ecotypes of...