English, asked by nikvik7289, 1 year ago

Write an article on nature 's medicine chest .

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Answered by abhishek9026
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Natural products have been used for millennia to treat a variety of diseases. Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, noted that a powder derived from the bark of the willow tree helped reduce pain from headaches. In the 1800s, chemists isolated this beneficial substance, salicylic acid, and refined it by buffering sodium salicylate with acetyl chloride to create acetylsalicylic acid or aspirin.

More recently, traditional medicine patents have been increasingly recognized as a rich source of natural products for potential drug discovery. Databases from Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS), a division of the American Chemical Society (ACS), have mined this wealth of research by providing access to information disclosed in more than 50,000 traditional medicine patent records from Pacific Rim countries, especially China. 

Everything old is new again
Traditional medicine is the knowledge, skills, and practice of maintaining health and treating physical and mental illness based on observations, beliefs, and experiences indigenous to different cultures. In some countries, traditional medicine is the primary means of health care for the majority of the population.

Today, traditional medicines and treatments are often used in alternative or complementary therapies, alone or as adjuncts to modern medical treatments, where they may have fewer side effects. Ginger, for example, is often recommended to safely relieve pregnancy-related nausea. 
Traditional medicines may also provide effective alternatives for drug-resistant diseases or may be developed less expensively than new drugs. 
Because of their promise, many traditional medicines are being investigated for multiple therapeutic uses. Astragalus, Angelica sinensis, peony, sage, and Ligusticum chuanxiong (Szechuan lovage) are being studied as analgesics, anti-inflammatories, antibacterials, and hypertension medicines.

Botanicals used in traditional medicines are indeed yielding successful drugs. Milk thistle (Silybum marianum), used to treat liver ailments, can be traced back to ancient Greece and Rome. More recently, its active compound, silybin, has been studied as an antitumor agent and is currently in clinical trials. In one randomized clinical trial in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, silybin decreased the harmful effects of chemotherapy on the liver without diminishing the effects of cancer treatment.

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