Publication:
From cumulative cultural transmission to evidence-based medicine: evolution of medicinal plant knowledge in Southern Italy

Simple item page
dc.affiliation.dptoUC3M. Departamento de Estadísticaes
dc.contributor.authorLeonti, Marco
dc.contributor.authorStaub, Peter O.
dc.contributor.authorCabras, Stefano
dc.contributor.authorCastellanos, María Eugenia
dc.contributor.authorCasu, Laura
dc.date.accessioned2021-06-09T07:36:08Z
dc.date.available2021-06-09T07:36:08Z
dc.date.issued2015-09-30
dc.description.abstractIn Mediterranean cultures written records of medicinal plant use have a long tradition. This written record contributed to building a consensus about what was perceived to be an efficacious pharmacopeia. Passed down through millennia, these scripts have transmitted knowledge about plant uses, with high fidelity, to scholars and laypersons alike. Herbal medicine's importance and the long-standing written record call for a better understanding of the mechanisms influencing the transmission of contemporary medicinal plant knowledge. Here we contextualize herbal medicine within evolutionary medicine and cultural evolution. Cumulative knowledge transmission is approached by estimating the causal effect of two seminal scripts about materia medica written by Dioscorides and Galen, two classical Greco-Roman physicians, on today's medicinal plant use in the Southern Italian regions of Campania, Sardinia, and Sicily. Plant-use combinations are treated as transmissible cultural traits (or “memes”), which in analogy to the biological evolution of genetic traits, are subjected to mutation and selection. Our results suggest that until today ancient scripts have exerted a strong influence on the use of herbal medicine. We conclude that the repeated empirical testing and scientific study of health care claims is guiding and shaping the selection of efficacious treatments and evidence-based herbal medicine.en
dc.description.sponsorshipThe research leading to these results has received funding from the People Programme (Marie Curie Actions) of the European Union's 7th Framework programme FP7/2007/2013 under REA grantagreement no. PITN-GA-2013-606895/MedPlant.en
dc.format.extent15
dc.identifier.bibliographicCitationLeonti, M., Staub, P. O., Cabras, S., Castellanos, M. E. & Casu, L. (2015). From cumulative cultural transmission to evidence-based medicine: evolution of medicinal plant knowledge in Southern Italy. Frontiers in Pharmacology, 6:207.es
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.3389/fphar.2015.00207
dc.identifier.issn1663-9812
dc.identifier.publicationfirstpage207
dc.identifier.publicationissue6
dc.identifier.publicationtitleFrontiers in Pharmacologyen
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10016/32852
dc.identifier.uxxiAR/0000017512
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisherFrontiersen
dc.rights© 2015 Leonti, Staub, Cabras, Castellanos and Casu.
dc.rightsAtribución 3.0 España*
dc.rights.accessRightsopen accessen
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/*
dc.subject.ecienciaEstadísticaes
dc.subject.otherTraditional medical knowledgeen
dc.subject.otherCultural transmission and evolutionen
dc.subject.otherCausal effecten
dc.subject.otherEvidence-baseden
dc.subject.otherHerbal medicineen
dc.subject.otherHistorical ethnopharmacologyen
dc.subject.otherDe materia medicaes
dc.subject.otherGlobalizationen
dc.subject.otherTraditional phytotherapyen
dc.subject.otherFolk medicineen
dc.subject.otherNational-parken
dc.subject.otherCampaniaen
dc.subject.otherEthnopharmacologyen
dc.subject.otherSardiniaen
dc.subject.otherPerspectivesen
dc.subject.otherMechanismsen
dc.subject.otherDistricten
dc.subject.otherPlaceboen
dc.titleFrom cumulative cultural transmission to evidence-based medicine: evolution of medicinal plant knowledge in Southern Italyen
dc.typeresearch article*
dc.type.hasVersionVoR*
dspace.entity.typePublication
Files
Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Cumulative_FP_2015.pdf
Size:
970.19 KB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Download
Collections
DES - Artículos de Revistas