ABSTRACT
Significant percentage of today's knowledge of ancient Egyptian medicine has been acquired from papyri left behind from various periods of Egyptian history. The longest and the most comprehensive is the Ebers papyrus, kept at the University Museum of Leipzig, which was written more than one thousand years before Hippocrates (c. 460-377 BC). One of the riddles among the prescriptions of the Ebers papyrus Eb20 has been used in order to remove the so called "wemyt" weremit from the abdomen with the help of a drink, which consists of "jnnk", Conyza dioscoridis in milk or sweet beer. The authors assume that the disease could be an infection of Schistosoma haematobium and/or Schistosoma mansoni. Nowadays the tea of Conyza dioscoridis is widely used as an important part of traditional medicine against rheumatism, intestinal distention and cramps, as well as an antiperspirant, and with external use for wound healing. The authors' intent is to interpret the efficacy of the above-mentioned ancient prescription with the help of modern medical and pharmaceutical knowledge.
Subject(s)
Conyza , Medicine, Traditional/history , Schistosoma/drug effects , Schistosomiasis/drug therapy , Schistosomiasis/history , Animals , Drug Prescriptions/history , Egypt, Ancient , History, Ancient , Humans , Medicine, Traditional/methods , Schistosoma haematobium/drug effects , Schistosoma mansoni/drug effects , Schistosomiasis haematobia/history , Schistosomiasis mansoni/historyABSTRACT
The unicellular Tetrahymena pyriformis was studied for chemotaxis, chemotactic selection, phagocytosis, growth and body shape changes in the presence of water soluble (beta-cyclodextrin-coupled) steroid hormones (testosterone, estradiol, progesterone, hydrocortisone and dexamethasone). Testosterone was chemoattractant over a wide range of concentrations, while progesterone and dexamethasone were active only at one concentration (10(-5) and 10(-6) mg ml(-1) respectively) and were either neutral or repellent at other concentrations. Hydrocortisone and estradiol were unambiguously chemorepellent. Chemotactic selection enhanced the effect of testosterone and estradiol, while in the case of hydrocortisone the action was reversed. The other parameters were mildly influenced by the steroid hormones. The results call attention to the fine molecular recognition capacity of Tetrahymena and to the possible rapid effects of steroid hormones at membrane receptors at a very low evolutionary eukaryotic level.
