Medicine
In the traditional Japanese medicine of kampo, wounds were treated with narcissus root and wheat flour paste; the plant, however, does not appear in the modern kampo herb list. The Roman physician Aulus Cornelius Celsus listed narcissus root in De Medicina among medical herbs, described as emollient, erodent, and "powerful to disperse whatever has collected in any part of the body". In one scientific study, the ethanol extract of the bulbs was found effective in one mouse model of nociception, para-benzoquinone induced abdominal constriction, but not in another, the hot plate test.
Daffodils are grown commercially near Brecon in Powys, Wales, to produce galantamine, a drug used to combat Alzheimer's disease.
Read more about this topic: Narcissus (plant)
Famous quotes containing the word medicine:
“In view of the fact that the number of people living too long has risen catastrophically and still continues to rise.... Question: Must we live as long as modern medicine enables us to?... We control our entry into life, it is time we began to control our exit.”
—Max Frisch (1911–1991)
“We gave ‘em wings to fly and they rained death on us. We gave ‘em a voice to be heard around the world and they preach hatred to poison the minds of nations. Even the medicine we gave them to ease their pain is turned into a vice to enslave half mankind for the profit of a few. Ah, Janet, dear, don’t you see? Every gift that science has given them has been twisted into a thing of hate and greed.”
—Karl Brown (1897–1990)
“As there is a use in medicine for poisons, so the world cannot move without rogues.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)