Traditional Knowledge in Medicine

Traditional medicine, developed and refined over centuries of observation and use, is an increasingly important starting point for modern drug discovery -- the chapter notes that Indian medicinal traditions in particular have documented uses for a very large number of native plants, and that modern medicinal chemistry is drawing more and more on such traditional knowledge, from India and elsewhere, to isolate active ingredients from medicinal plants and use them as the basis for developing new drugs. The chapter's own table works through six such plants, pairing each with its traditional medicinal property and the specific chemical compound modern science has since identified as its active ingredient: turmeric, used as an antiseptic, owes this to curcumin; wintergreen, used as an analgesic, owes it to methyl salicylate; cinnamon, used as an antimicrobial for colds, owes it to cinnamaldehyde; clove, used as both an antimicrobial and an analgesic, owes it to eugenol; citrus fruits, valued as an antioxidant, owe it to vitamin C (ascorbic acid); and Indian gooseberry (amla), used as an antidiabetic, antimicrobial and antioxidant, owes its effects to a combination of vitamin C and gallic acid. A real-world illustration of why protecting this traditional knowledge matters is the turmeric patent battle: in 1997, India successfully challenged and overturned a US patent that had been granted on turmeric's wound-healing use, arguing -- through a case led by Dr. Raghunath Mashelkar, then Director General of India's Council of Scientific and Industrial R …