CORRESPONDENCE
The second problem is one of plant Botanical collections at risk identification. How do we establish the identity of medicinal plants mentioned SIR - We wish to draw your readers' the development of computerized data in texts that, as a rule, provide no attention to the outcome of an important bases. iconography and only cursory botanical conference held by UNESCO and the In our opinion, the institutes responsi descriptions? Although the works of International Council of Scientific Unions ble for botanical collections in the Soviet Theophrastus and Dioscorides provide a (ICSU) at the Komarov Botanical Insti Union need not only financial assistance firm starting point and have made possible tute in St Petersburg in December 1993. but also help in formulating and executing the compilation of important repertories Among other things, the status and the plans for the future. They need to learn of classical phytonims , several problems future of botanical collections in the for how to fight for their own survival. remain. For example, how confident can mer Soviet Union were discussed. D.S.Ingram we be that the same plant name used in the There are more than 25 million plant Royal Botanic Garden, second century BC by the Italian Cato the specimens, living and preserved, in more 20A lnverleith Row, Elder and in the fourth century AD by the than 230 collections in the former Soviet Edinburgh EH3 5LR, UK North-African Pseudo-Apuleius indicate Union. These constitute a botanical re G. Ll. Lucas the same botanical species? Clearly, a source of incalculable international im The Herbarium, detailed analysis should be carried out to portance. Because of chronic underfund Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, confirm, case by case, the most plausible ing, these collections are at immediate risk Richmond, Surrey TW9 3AE, UK identifications. of irreparable damage from unsuitable R.Huxley The third problem, and possibly the and deteriorating storage conditions such Department ofBotany, most delicate, is one of historical perspec as inadequate pest control and fire precau Natural History Museum, tive. We are used to thinking of pharma tions. Use of the collections is hampered Cromwell Road, London SWl 5BD, UK cological therapy as something exclusively by insufficient staff (some have no staff at rational and experimental. This may or all), inadequate curation and the impedi may not be true for current therapy, but it ments to the loan and exchange of speci is certainly false for premodern therapy. mens caused by an expensive and unreli Medicinal plants Like us, the Ancients believed in the value able postal system. There is little hope of SIR - B. K. Holland's Commentary, of experimental evidence. But they attri an improvement of state funding in the "Prospecting drugs from ancient texts"1 buted to this deceptively simple concept near future. Staff morale is low. proposes a re-examination of Graeco meanings which, beside being widely These problems must be of great con Roman pharmacological literature to different from our own, also changed cern to the international botanical com screen for drugs of potential therapeutic considerably during the sixteen centuries munity. Apart from money, the collec use. This important proposal raises three that separate Hippocratic writers from, tions are urgently in need of the skills problems that deserve consideration. say, Hildegard of Bingen. Yet appreciat necessary for planning and ensuring their First, a philological problem. Although ing the various elements that made up long-term survival. The conference re some aspects of Graeco-Roman pharma premodern therapeutic choices - some commended the following actions: cology have been studied in depth - for times an assembly of empirics, philosophy • The appropriate authorities should example, its relationship to folklore on the and folklore - is essential to finding the assume full responsibility for collections one hand and literate learning on the way through the intricate pharmacopeias 2 on their territories. other - technical texts such as collec of the Ancients. • UNESCO should plan an international tions of recipes and drug handbooks have In conclusion, Holland's proposal programme in the field, and should de attracted much less attention from philo opens up a promising avenue of research clare an official Year of Natural History logists and historians of medicine. As a that may lead to the discovery of novel Collections to that end. result, only a limited number of old (and therapeutic agents (or rather, to the redis • The public, governments and inter sometimes outdated) critical editions of covery of ancient ones). The problems national institutions should be made these texts are available. This is true not outlined here underscore the importance, 1 aware of the importance of the collec only of writers considered, rightly or pointed out by Holland , of carrying out tions; they and donor agencies should wrongly, to be of secondary importance this research through a multidisciplinary develop programmes to support the col (for example, Marcellus of Bordeaux3 and effort involving specialists from such di 4 lections. Theodorus Priscianus ), but also of ack verse fields as philology, botany, pharma • The Komarov Botanical Institute nowledged masters of ancient botany and cology and history of medicine. should be designated a part of the Russian medicine such as Dioscorides and Galen. Daniele Plomelll National Heritage. For example, the reader interested in Unite de Neurobiologie • Botanical institutes within the former Dioscorides' Euporista, a short handbook et Pharmacologie de 1'/NSERM, Soviet Union should produce inventories that classifies hundreds of medicinal Paris, France of their collections and make the informa plants on the basis of their therapeutic Antonlno Pollio tion available internationally. usage, must still depend on the edition Dipartimento di Biologia Vegetale, • Each collection should develop a state published by C. G. Kuhn more than a Universita Federico II, ment of its goals and a realistic plan for century and a half ago (1830). Napoli, ltalia achieving them. It is hardly surprising, then, that many • International collaboration should be anonymous libri receptarii, lists of drug 1. Holland,B.K.Nature369, 702(1994). strengthened by the improved exchange prescriptions written in Latin as well as in 2. Lloyd, G. R. Science, Folklore and Ideology, 112-217 (Cambridge University Press, 19B3). of material and information as well as by vernacular languages between the fourth 3. Marcellus EmpiricusOeMedicamentis (ed. Elmreich, G.) staff training in herbarium management, and eleventh centuries, are still awaiting (Teubner, Lipsia, 1889). 5 6 4. Theodorus Priscianus Euporiston (ed. Rose, V.) (Teubner, through the Panarctica Biota project and publication • . Finally, even when adequ Lipsia, 1894). ate critical editions exist, as in the case of 5. Sigerist, H. E. Bull. Hist. Medicine 2, 26-52 (1934). 7 6. Stannard,J. Bull. Hist. Medicine46, 455--467 (1972). Letters submitted for Correspondence Pseudo-Apuleius' Herbarius , few trans 7. Sigerist. H. E. &Howald, E. Pseudo-Apulei Herbarius should be typed, double-spaced, on one lations are available, making these works Corpus Medicorum Latinorum, vol. IV (Leipzig and Berlin, 1927). side of the paper only. of little use to researchers who do not have 8. Andre J. Les Noms des PI antes dans Ia Rome Antique (Les a solid background in Greek or Latin. Belles Lettres, Paris, 1981). NATURE · VOL 371 · 1 SEPTEMBER 1994 9