#76407
07/20/2002 4:15 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 771
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 771 |
Foxglove is also my favorite example of herbal remedies driving drug development... it's the central compound to the digitalis family of drugs for regulating the heart rate. Interesting history on the foxglove/digitalis connection at http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Chemistry/MOTM/digitalis/digtalis.htm. [Although "Molecule of the Month"? I think I'm going to vomit...  ]
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#76408
07/20/2002 7:28 PM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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and the latin name, digitalis , contains the word digit, (finger) and means "for the finger". a much better fit for latin name then the latin name for columbine (named for doves, since someone thought the flower resembled doves, dipping their heads down to drink) in latin the flower is Aquilegia because its namer thought it resembled the talons of an eagle!
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#76409
07/20/2002 8:00 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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wofahulicodoc: Where are you when we need you? That article about digitalis has one big fat error it in.
The primary effect of digitalis, I remember from fifty years ago, it that it decreases the resting length of cardiac muscle,and so restores lost contractile power, and thereby corrects cardiac failure. It is also used for other cardiac problems, but I do not know enough about them to discuss them.
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#76410
07/20/2002 8:34 PM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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my understanding of digitalis was it made the heart pump strong, but slower.. It works by increasing the intensity of the heart muscle contractions but diminishing the rate-- and by pumping slower, it let the heart muscle rest longer..
since congestive heart failure is often characterized by an an increase rate, of ineffective pumping, it causes the heart to be overworked, but circulation to be sluggish, which then results in the blood stagnating, and causes edema, first in the extremities, and eventually in the lungs, which causes them to be saturated, and less effective at oxygen exchange, which increases the CO2 level in the blood, which then signal the brain to increase the heart rate, and the cycle increases till the heart, is total worn out and totally fails... (or the fluid that collects in the lungs leads to pnumonia, and the weakened heart is further starved for oxygen)
a secondary treatment for congestive heart failure is diuretics, which reduce the volume of fluid, and the edema, (but then make the blood too thick, so Hepatrin(sp?) is then used to thin the blood.. )
until the circulary system was understood, digitalis was a treatment for dropsy.. or edema.
but i am sure Doc comfort, or one of the other more knowledgable scientist on the board will correct me if i am wrong..
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#76411
07/21/2002 4:43 PM
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 11,070 Likes: 2
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Heart failure is regrettably much more complicated than that; you could give yourself a hernia lifting textbooks on the subject...
Alert: Probably more than you wanted to know about digitalis (foxglove)
Digitalis has many different effects on the heart, known by their Greek names:
inotropic - makes the muscle contract more vigorously (faster and stronger); that's the primary benefit
chronotropic - makes the rate faster in spontaneously-active pacemaker-like cells, so that too much makes an excessively fast heart. (But as the heart failure is relieved by the inotropic benefit, the heart doesn't have to work as hard, and then it can slow down a bit. It's only a secondary effect of the digoxin.)
dromotropic - makes the conduction of impulses from atria to ventricles slower, so that if there is Atrial Fibrillation and the ventricles are going too fast, digoxin will slow it. (That's another place where the slowing-down comes into play.)
bathmotropic - makes the individual cells more irritable, so they may give extra beats more frequently. Can be dangerous, or merely annoying but harmless, or not even noticed!
I feel like a real dinosaur now - those Greek names aren't even in the current textbooks of pharmacology any more! Too abstruse for our times, I suppose. The properties of the drug remain unchanged, though
Except for the irritability part, these are generally beneficial for a person with a failing heart. Unfortunately it's very easy to tip over into excess since the difference between "enough" and "too much" is quite small: the drug has a "narrow toxic/therapeutic ratio."
We use other things too for relieving the various symptoms of heart failure: diuretics for fluid retention; "ACE inhibitors" to permit more "circulation-per-squeeze" without using any more energy; "beta-blockers" so the heart isn't running on overdrive continuously. Digoxin has become an "add-on" drug. And of course there is more public awareness of what causes the problem in the first place, as well as more effective medicines, leading to better control of smoking, of blood pressure, of cholesterol, and of diabetes, and therefore to less coronary artery disease to have to treat.
It's interesting that the chief cause of heart disease in Withering's day (rheumatic fever; rheumatic heart disease) is virtually unheard-of today in this country, so that we're largely dealing with a diffferent set of problems.
Getting back to "digitalis," the extract of D. purpurea: it's actually a combination of a lot of related compounds called digitalis glycosides (dozens, I was told) which differ only by minor changes in the structure of the parent compound and the associated sugar part but have great variation in effects. Nowadays the drug has been standardized and synthesized, and isn't obtained from the plant any more. The most common preparation is "digoxin," only recently available as a generic but even the venerable brand Lanoxin (r) is very inexpensive by today's standards.
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#76413
07/21/2002 10:19 PM
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Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 9
stranger
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stranger
Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 9 |
>> Magenta - A brilliant red colour derived from coal-tar, named in commemoration of the battle of Magenta, which was fought in 1859.
The name given to bloody red of battle -- a commemoration, or a commentary?
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#76414
07/21/2002 10:49 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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As far as bloodshed is concerned, the battle of Magenta was less horrible than most.
I found a net site that said there were 6,000 casualties. But it was very important in
its significance in leading to the unification of Italy.
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#76415
07/21/2002 10:57 PM
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Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Miss, Mistress, Mrs (masteress, lady-master). Miss used to be written Mis, and is the first syllable of
Mistress; Mrs. is the contraction of mistress, called Misess. Even in the reign of George II. unmarried
ladies used to be styled Mrs.; as, Mrs. Lepel, Mrs. Bellenden, Mrs. Blount, all unmarried ladies. (See
Pope's Letters.)
Early in Charles II.'s reign, Evelyn tells us that “lewd women began to be styled Misse;” now Mistress
is more frequently applied to them.
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#76416
07/21/2002 11:00 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Mistletoe Shakespeare calls it “the baleful mistletoe” (Titus Andronicus, ii. 3), in allusion to the
Scandinavian story that it was with an arrow made of mistletoe that Balder was slain. (See Kissing Under
The Mistletoe .)
The word mistletoe is a corruption of mistel-ta, where mist is the German for “dung,” or rather the
“droppings of a bird,” from the notion that the plant was so propagated, especially by the missel-thrush.
Ta is for tan, Old Norse tein, meaning “a plant” or “shoot.”
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#76417
07/21/2002 11:07 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Mob A contraction of the Latin mobile vulgus (the fickle crowd). The term was first applied to the
people by the members of the Green-ribbon Club, in the reign of Charles II. (Northern Examiner, p.
574.)
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#76418
07/22/2002 12:34 AM
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 11,070 Likes: 2
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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And for a *lot of info, including how to grow and market foxglove :
http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/f/foxglo30.html
which also has a link to a medical (?) site on ntidotes
Interesting link indeed. I didn't scan every word, but the only date I saw was 1922. We've come a long way since then!
The biggest problem with herbal preparations - and antidotes - is that we just don't know what's in them. They aren't standardized, not even Digitalis Leaf. The more esoteric ones probably have many active ingredients, and we have no confidence that one pill is the same as the next, even out of the same bottle. Or whether there isn't something else in there besides what we think we want. Not to mention how any of the known or unknown ingredients may interact with the more standard nostrums our allopathic physicians may have prescribed, or anything else we may be taking.
As you may conclude I don't feel very secure with people taking alternative remedies, even "natural" ones, for a variety of reasons...
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#76419
07/22/2002 1:21 AM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Morgue a dead-house, is generally associated with mors (death). but this is a blunder, as the word means
visage, and was first applied to prison vestibules, where new criminals were placed to be scrutinised, that
the prison officials might become familiar with their faces and general appearance.
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#76420
07/22/2002 1:38 AM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Mosaic Work is not connected with the proper name Moses, but with the Muses (Latin, opus muscum,
musium, or musivum; Greek, mouseion; French, mosaique; Italian, mosaico). Pliny says it was so called
because these tesselated floors were first used in the grottoes consecrated to the Muses (xxxv. 21, s. 42).
The most famous workman in mosaic work was Sosus of Pergamos, who wrought the rich pavement in
the common-hall, called Asaroton oecon. (Pliny: Natural History, xxxvi. 4, 64.)
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#76421
07/22/2002 1:44 AM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Mother Goose A name associated with nursery rhymes. She was born in Boston, and her eldest daughter
Elizabeth married Thomas Fleet, the printer. Mrs. Goose used to sing the rhymes to her grandson, and
Thomas Fleet printed the first edition in 1719.
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#76422
07/22/2002 1:57 AM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Mow a heap, and Mow, to cut down, are quite different words. Mow, a heap, is the Anglo-Saxon mowe,
but mow, to cut down, is the Anglo-Saxon máw-an.
To cut grass is to mow, rhymes with bow and arrrow. When the grass has been cured it is stored
in a part of a barn called a "mow" rhymes with "now".
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#76423
07/22/2002 2:07 AM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Munchausen (Baron). The hero of a volume of travels, who meets with the most marvellous adventures.
The incidents have been compiled from various sources, and the name is said to have pointed to
Hieronymus Karl Friedrich von Münchhausen, a German officer in the Russian army, noted for his
marvellous stories (1720-1797). It is a satire either on Baron de Tott, or on Bruce, whose Travels in
Abyssinia were looked upon as mythical when they first appeared. The author is Rudolf Erich Raspe, and
the sources from which the adventures were compiled, are Bebel's Facetiæ, Castiglione's Cortegiano,
Bildermann's Utopia, and some of the baron's own stories.
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#76424
07/22/2002 2:20 AM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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N This letter represents a wriggling eel, and is called in Hebrew nun (a fish).
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#76426
07/22/2002 11:02 AM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 1,346
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 1,346 |
She was born in Boston, and her eldest daughter
Elizabeth married Thomas Fleet, the printerNot according to this, Bill: http://www.librarysupport.net/mothergoosesociety/who.htmlSounds like there is some debate on this one! I recently saw a performance of a pantomime called Mother Goose, and I assumed the story to be the origin of the name (i.e. "Mother Goose" was just another fairy tale). It was closely allied (no surprise) with the story of "the goose that laid the golden eggs". However, I reckon the pantomime is a fairly modern creation that just reuses the (very old) name.
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#76427
07/22/2002 1:12 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Dear fishonabike: I'm not taking sides. However, Brewer was obviously a serious scholar,
and being a Brit,would have had no motive to award undeserved fame to any Bostonian.
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#76428
07/22/2002 2:11 PM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 1,346
veteran
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veteran
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Brewer was obviously a serious scholarCouldn't agree more, Bill - as witness all these delightful and informative derivations that you have been passing on from the man (for which we are all very grateful). However, he is only human. He may have made a mistake in this instance, or he may even be  dropping in a little joke. being a Brit,would have had no motive to award undeserved fame to any BostonianI don't think Brits are (or were) invariably anti-US by any means, and especially in pockets there has been (and is) a very close relationship indeed. Tom Paine, friend to Benjamin Franklin, and a man with local connections - and a local brew named after him! - springs to mind: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRpaine.htmNo, I'm only basing my (cross-threadable) skepticism on an intuition that Mother Goose is far older than implied here, as are fairy tales about geese and golden eggs and so forth. Mrs Goose's name was a bit more like serendipity from this viewpoint. I've no evidence whatsoever to support. But then, what's new? 
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#76429
07/22/2002 3:08 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Mother Goose contains not stories, but short verses, of the sort grandmothers recite to
small children. Many of them undoubtedly originated in England and were brought by
settlers to New England. I have read that some of them are said to have been satires
on Englidh political events. E.g.:
Little Jack Horner
Sat in the corner,
Eating a Christmas pie;
He put in his thumb,
And pulled out a plum,
And said,
What a good boy am I!
I have read that this is said to refer to an agent of HenryVIII, who when he carried a "pie"
which was a package of deeds to church property the king had seized, he stole a couple
deeds and had them registered in his name.
I am not impressed by alleged difficulties in finding gravestone of Elizabeth Goose. I have
ancestors older than her whose gravestones have disappeared from Copp's Hill.
Edit: I later found this on a different site:
According to legend, Little Jack Horner was actually Thomas Horner, steward to the Abbot of Glastonbury during the reign of King Henry VIII. Rumor had it that the inquisitive king would soon be reaching for some Glastonbury holdings. The nervous Abbot, hoping to appease the royal appetite, sent the king a special gift: a pie containing twelve deeds to manor houses. On his way to London, the not-so-loyal courier Horner stuck his thumb into the pie and extracted the deed for Mells Manor, a plum piece of real estate, where his descendants live to this day.
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#76430
07/23/2002 12:18 PM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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The Flashman books by George MacDonald Fraser is a very good source for Victorian history
Have you read these, Rhuby?
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#76431
07/23/2002 1:30 PM
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Joined: May 2000
Posts: 679
addict
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addict
Joined: May 2000
Posts: 679 |
The Flashman books by George MacDonald Fraser is a very good source for Victorian history
Have you read these, Rhuby?
All of them, Jackie. Twice. I highly recommend them for a thumping good read and some incredible insights into 19th century life all over the world. Flashman visited the US several times and they have so far been recorded in Flash for freedom about the slave ships into Nawlins,Flashman and the Redskins about the '49 gold rush and the Sioux wars of '76 and Flashman and the Angel of the Lord about the Harper's Ferry insurrection. He also took part in the US Civil War but this book hasn't been written yet. Mr. MacDonald Fraser had better hurry up because he's pushing past 80 and I would hate to see him give up before the series is complete.
My all-time favourite is Flashman and the Great Game about the Indian mutiny. Oh, and if you want to know a bit about cricket then read Flashman's lady. There's an excellent commentary on a real match played between MCC and the gentlemen of England in 1842. Classic stuff.
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#76432
07/26/2002 8:51 AM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 1,346
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 1,346 |
The Flashman books by George MacDonald Fraser is a very good source for Victorian historyI knew the books were popular worldwide, but didn't realise how popular until just now. Here's a link to "The Royal Flashman Society [small print: of Upper Canada ]": http://www.pangloss.ca/flashman/Some people may be interested to know that Flashman first appeared as a (significant) character in Tom Brown's Schooldays.
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