ABSTRACT
Analisa os processos de assimilação e transformação de saberes e práticas terapêuticas que envolvem o uso de plantas medicinais, e destaca o uso, no combate à lepra, do óleo da chaulmoogra. Atenta para os diferentes modos de incorporação e transformação das chaulmoogras em conhecimentos validados cientificamente, tendo em vista a entrada em cena da 'chaulmoogra brasileira'. Privilegia a chegada dos derivados dessa planta à pauta de produção do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz (IOC), na década de 1920, estabelecendo nexos entre os diferentes processos produtivos e articulando-os ao contexto científico no período estudado. O óleo de chaulmoogra representou, até a década de 1940, a grande esperança para a tentativa de cura da lepra. Observa ainda que a terapêutica chaulmúgrica durante esse período, consolidou-se como um saber científico graças à realização de diversas pesquisas feitas em laboratórios de todo o mundo ocidental.
The article investigates how knowledge of medicinal plants and related treatment practices are assimilated and transformed. Taking as its focus the use of chaulmoogra oil to treat leprosy, it examines how information on this plant was incorporated and transformed into scientifically validated knowledge when 'Brazilian chaulmoogra' came onto the scene. Pointing to the addition of chaulmoogra byproducts to the Instituto Oswaldo Cruz's production agenda in the 1920s, the study establishes links between productive processes and relates these to the period's scientific context. From the late nineteenth century until the 1940s, chaulmoogra oil was the great hope in efforts to cure leprosy. During this period, chaulmoogric treatment earned a place as scientific knowledge thanks to research studies conducted in laboratories throughout the Western world.
Subject(s)
Chaulmoogra/therapeutic use , Leprosy/therapy , Plant Oils/therapeutic use , Brazil , History of Medicine , Plants, MedicinalABSTRACT
Before the development of dapsone the standard remedy for Hansen's disease was the chaulmoogra oil. The oil was first introduced to western physicians in the 1850's by Dr. Fredric J. Mouat, the British physician, in India. Around 1900, leprosaria in the Hawaiian Islands and at Carville, Louisiana, adopted the chaulmoogra oil as their main treatment. But the oil has been traditionally treated as a drug for Hansen's disease in India and China since 2000 years before. Although the mechanism of action is not known, the lipolysis hypothesis or chemotatic theory resulted from counter irritation was suggested. Since the development of sulfone in 1947, the oil has not been used anymore as antileprosy medication. However, recent reports about the effect of the oil on wound healing in Hansen's disease and diabetes provided us with the possibility of the reappraisal of the chaulmoogra oil. We performed this study to determine the effect of the chaulmoogra oil on wound healing in Hansen's disease patients still having neuropathic foot ulcers and ulcerations of paraffinoma as sequelae.