Plants in Cardiology
Description:... From earliest times mankind has depended on plants to treat disease. It was through folk medicine that plant remedies such as hyoscine, which are still of great value, were introduced. When diagnosis was primitive, treatment was chiefly the relief of symptoms by trial and error. But medical science has developed new medicines and new uses from the old folk remedies - amiodarone came from an Egyptian herb, verapamil from opium, and procainamide from an Inca stimulant. In the development of modern cardiological drugs chance observation, extensive chemical investigation, studies of diseases in animals, and patients' own findings have all played a part, and Arthur Hollman's account of these discoveries makes fascinating reading.
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