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Medieval Medicine or Tomorrow’s Anti-Obesity Drug?
Bitter Vetch (Lathyrus linifolius) - www.agronomy.uhi.ac.uk Photographer: John Wishart
… to the Knapperts juice Dug from the ground, Washed in the bubbling spring Dried in the sun, in baskets home they bring, In wooden cans, within the shady bower, Upon the roots they chrystal water pour Which drunk next day is exquisitely good, Anonymous Poet indicated as ‘ Mr Forbes of Brux’.
At the end of the British holiday season when autumn begins to spin her web of gold across the countryside, there is great excitement at the medieval hospital site of Soutra Aisle monastery in the shadow of the Lammermuir Hills, near Edinburgh. And what is causing all this fuss? A ‘common weed’, none other than ‘Bitter vetch’ (Lathyrus linifolius), a medieval herbal Scottish remedy for suppressing hunger and thirst used once upon a time to treat hospital patients at Soutra Aisle’s hospital, and more generally to lose weight or to cope with the famine conditions of a failed harvest. Once more, if we but seek to find and trust in Mother Nature, we discover that the historical use of plants and anecdotal evidence point the way to often the commonest weeds for answers to our modern maladies. After archaeologists found proof that the Augustinian monks at the 12th century Monastery were making ‘potions’ from the tubers of Bitter Vetch, the real work began. The plant is now being investigated by ‘Highland Natural Products’ at Muir of Ord, Ross-shire, for its potential production as a slimming pill.2 Dr Brain Moffat, the director of the Soutra Aisle dig, said it appeared the monks were cutting up the tubers of the plant to make their potion, which tiny tubers are eaten two or three at a time and have a ‘leathery liquorice’ taste. According to around 300 reports the team have compiled the effect of the herb as a hunger and thirst suppressant is to simply make people forget to eat or drink. Taken to the extreme, such as in famine conditions, this effect can last for weeks or sometimes months.3
Perchance heralded by the skirl of bagpipes, we now hopefully and seriously await a positive announcement that a new Midlothian medicine has been discovered to help combat the growing menaces to human health of obesity.
A bit about Obesity In scientific terms, obesity occurs when a person consumes more calories than he or she burns. The causation of this imbalance may differ individually and be from genetic, environmental, psychological, and other factors that may also contribute to the condition.4 It may seem like stating the obvious to say: fat parents have fat children. Obesity does tend to run in families, suggesting a genetic cause. Although forms of obesity have a strong hereditary component, genetic research is not yet elucidated, more work needs to be done.5 However, families who share diet and lifestyle habits e.g. disinclination to exercise or taking inadequate exercise, with or without genetic influence, have a forceful environmental effect upon their offspring. For whatever reason, most noticeably only in the past couple of decades, psychological factors play a part in eating as a negative response to negative emotions and self-worth; in some cases depression can be the cause or the effect. Illness and treatment of some conditions can also lead to a tendency to weight-gain or obesity, such as hypothyroidism, Cushing's syndrome, GH and testosterone deficiency, polycystic ovarian syndrome, insulinoma, hypothalamic lesions, and genetic syndromes.6 Drugs such as steroids and some antidepressants7 may also cause weight-gain. The abuse of anabolic steroids for body building is the best known misuse of the drugs, but one of the many side-effects of prescribed corticosteroids8 is weight gain, particularly increased fatty tissue on the face and upper trunk and back.9 It would seem that abundance and famine can be a double edged sword, for famine or times of scarcity dictate that ‘necessity is a violent school-mistress’,10 but ‘necessity is the mother of invention’ also. The dire obesity problems of the West similarly badly need a solution; it looks as if bitter vetch fills the bill. It is only a thought, because at present the majority interest in Bitter vetch is for its hunger suppression potential, but perhaps its thirst suppression properties might have some use in helping with alcoholism. Overall research is not conclusive, but it is suggested that alcohol consumption, especially daily consumption, should be regarded as a risk factor for an increased body weight and obesity.11 This ‘thirst suppression’ aspect of bitter vetch’s virtues certainly could hold promise within the realms of aiding explorers and the military, or even for large scale disasters where people cannot immediately get the food and drink they require. In tight corners, chewing on some bitter vetch tubers might temporarily assist when emergency rations run out under certain conditions. A bit of Bitter Vetch Botany and History
Bitter Vetch (Lathyrus linifolius) - www.agronomy.uhi.ac.uk Photographer: John Wishart Bitter Vetch, is a member of ‘The Pea Family’, the Leguminosae, which is now separated into Ceasalpiniaceae, Fabacease, Minosacae and Papilionaceae, and is made up of some 17,000 species, including our beloved Sweet Pea flowers (Lathyrus odorata). The vetches and vetchlings are native to temperate areas in both hemispheres and their range even extends into mountainous parts of Africa. Their growth habits vary from ground cover and aquatic to shrubs, climbers and trees. It includes many well-known vegetables particularly of temperate regions (beans and peas), ornamental trees in tropical regions (Cassia), fodder crops (clover, lucerne) and weeds (vetches and trefoils). Our bitter vetch is strictly speaking (Lathyrus linifolius: Papilionaceae), and one species (Lathyrus linifolius montanus) is also native to the Hebredian Island of Colonsay. 12 In fact, Lathyrus linifolius can be found in many other parts of the British Isles.13 In an erudite paper written by Dr Brian Moffat,14 we are told that Bitter Vetch’s common names are, in Gaelic Corra-Meille colloquially Caremyle/Karemyle; and in English Heath Pea[se] or Wood Pea[se]. With reference to “Don: A Poem” (above), the tubers are [K]napper[t]s, arts, [K]nopper[t]s, -arts, Knapharts. The proper name is Lathyrus linifolius, but when it was first mentioned by Robert Morison (a graduate of the University of Aberdeen who went on to head the Oxford Botanic Gardens), it was ‘Astragalus sylvatica, Thali’ Plantarum Historiae Universalis Oxoniensis, 1699 (NLS, H.33.a). Thus the naming of this Bitter vetch plant has had a convoluted history.15 As a gardener’s weed bitter vetch can be a cause of frustration to the point of exasperation to eradicate, so it is not likely to be in short supply for the purposes of producing a modern version of the 800 year-old Soutra Aisle’s potion. Some species of vetch can be harmful, e.g. neuroactive Lathyrus latifolius.16 However, another Bitter vetch (Vicia ervilia)17, which flowers are hermaphrodite (having both male and female organs), has been substituted for lentils and is a Neolithic ‘domesticated’ founder crop.18 The poisonous principle seems to reside chiefly in the bitter seed coat, which can be removed by steeping in water. Gerard, 19 speaking of the “bitter vetch “(Ervum.emilia), says " kine in Asia and in most other countries do eat thereof, being made sweet by steeping in water." It is perhaps this species of Bitter vetch that Heraclitus (Heraclites) was referring to when he exhorted us not to confuse hunger with unhappiness, saying: "If happiness consisted in the pleasures of the body, we would call oxen happy when they find bitter vetch to eat."20 It is obvious that the ancients knew a lot about vetches. In his day, Hippocrates said of vetch: “With ourselves and many other countries, cattle eat bitter vetch which has first been sweetened with water, but people absolutely avoid the seed; for it is distasteful and produces unhealthy humour. But sometimes in severe famine from force of necessity they come to it. We ourselves use bitter vetch with honey as a drug.” 21 Later Galen said on ‘The Properties of Foodstuffs’–Re: Food shortages in the Spring – “in this season the economically vulnerable also ate tare and vetch, which farmers normally stored as cattle food.”22 However, as recently as 2002, crop vetch is among those seeds provided to Afghanistan in relation to the long-term stabilization of agriculture.23 The ‘hunger suppressant’ properties of bitter vetch were recognized and used in the time of the ancient Britons: “The historian Dion in The Life of Serverus where he treateth of the Ancient Britons [Britons] writeth of them, that they indured much Hunger and Cold, and fed in the Woods upon the Barks and Roots of Trees, and upon all occasions, they had a sort of Meat, of which they took but the bigness of a Bean, they neither Hunger nor Thirst.24 Our Highlanders … to preserve them from Hunger and Thirst, make much of the use of the Knobs upon the Roots of the Karemyle, which is Orobus silvaticus nostras perennis … [literally our perennial Wood Vetch], of our learned Dr Morrison. … The round knobs have the taste of liquorice. They keep it in their Mouths the bigness of a Bean or Pea; they infuse it too in the Water they Drink, and they make a Drink of the Decoction of the Knobs of it; in the strength of this they can Travel and Toil.”25 By the late 17th –early 18th –centuries the use of Bitter vetch was widespread: “In both his scholarly and his popular writings, Sibbald gave more space and attention to Caremyle than any other plant in Scotland. A practical pocket sized handbook for the populace, titled Provision for the Poor in Time of Dearth and Scarcity’, names plants that are usable from the wild and from the garden. Caremyle (or Karemyle) is the plant above all others that Sibbald recommends ‘in time of dearth and scarcity’.” 26 It is abundantly clear that Sibbald experimented on himself and got attention in the highest quarters: “His notebook entry continues: The King [Charles II], Duke & Dutchess, Prince and Princess, and all the court, were surprized at the nature of the plant, and desyred me to gett some more on’t to make further experiments on others. My Lord Braid Albin [Breadalbane], Sir William Bruce and severall Gentlemen of our Country now at Court have testifyed to the effects usually ascribed to these roots, which in the North they call Knappers. … if families can be Keept or Seamen at Sea Dyeted wt. [with] such food, which would much save charges of the country physician.27 “In his memoir of his life, Sibbald recalled he had given copies of Scotia Illustrata to King Charles II, to the Duke of York and to various members of court. As the above extract demonstrates, prominent members of the court at Westminster were involved in testing Caremyle, and their findings were relayed to Sibbald by a James Fraser, who was evidently the initiator and organiser of the experiments.”28 It is wonderful news to find such scholarly investigative back-ground research works to be already accomplished, which considering the high-flying notables referred to above, should hold sway today with Bitter vetch’s acceptance by the equivalent ‘powers that be’ as a bona fide remedy misplaced and forgotten for a very long time, but far from merely ‘anecdotal’ evidence in the sense of being insubstantial. As the Romans would say, the auspices auger well for bitter vetch getting its much needed aid into the arena of obesity and unwanted weight-gain, as well as undoubtedly many other applications that will be found.
Missing out on Medieval Medicine? Sadly, not all sites of medieval monasteries and their hospitals are isolated from the modern urban juggernaut of ‘progress’! We may not as yet fully appreciate the knowledge and efforts in the fields of medicine and surgery made by our medieval ancestors or, as in the case of Soutra Aisle, just how much we need to and can learn from them. This may well be true on sites that are hurriedly excavated in lieu of development. In 2003, archaeologists had less than a week to complete work on the site of a medieval monastery it took 20 years to locate. St Guthlac’s Priory, dating back to the 12th –century, was discovered ironically underneath land at Hereford County Hospital. About 20 skeletons believed to be of medieval monks were uncovered. All monasteries had their medicines; the work of the monks there found might have revealed more about their remedies and drugs. St Guthlac’s Priory was not abandoned until the 16th Century during the dissolution of the monasteries. Who knows what has now been missed because a new access road through the current hospital was in such a hurry to be born.29
Medieval Surgery at Wharram Percy
Wharram Percy (Nr Malton, Yorkshire, England) - Mill Pond with St Martin’s Church in background Photographer: Mike Brockhurst - www.walkingenglishman.com When it comes to medieval surgery, the 12th –century site at Wharram Percy has the edge. Scientists have been examining the remains from the now deserted village of Wharram Percy, once a thriving community built on sheep farming that fell into steep decline after the Black Death and was eventually completely abandoned. The vicious and vicarious killings associated with today’s ‘drug culture’ are in stark contrast with what was found last month at this country site, which has been excavated over a 40-year period making it the longest dig in British archaeological history. However poverty stricken ordinary people ‘the peasants’ of that time may have been it is patent that life was held precious and drastic acts were taken to preserve it. A 900-year-old grave including the remains of a woman and baby showed evidence of a Caesarean operation during pregnancy. The skeleton of the woman aged 25-30 shows she died ten weeks before childbirth and the female foetus was removed from the womb to try to preserve her.30 It was not a life-style choice, but a matter of life and death. Make no mistake, medieval surgeons were advanced and carried out complex surgery. Last year at Wharram Percy, a skull belonging to a 40-yar-old peasant man, who lived between 960AD-1100AD is the firmest evidence yet of cranial surgery. The man had been struck a blow to the head by a blunt weapon, causing a severe depressed fracture on the left-hand side of his skull, but he had survived thanks to surgery.31 Trepanning, is a method used, whereby a rectangular area of the scalp would have been lifted to allow the depressed bone segments to be carefully removed to relieve pressure on the brain. Although Roman and Greek writings document the technique of trepanning for treating skull fractures, there is no mention of it in Anglo-Saxon literature at that time. “It predates medieval written accounts of the procedure by at least 100 years and is a world away from the notion that Anglo-Saxon healers were all about spells and potions.”32 Some historians have theorized that Western Europe was deprived of such surgical knowledge for centuries after the fall of Alexandria in the 7th –century.33 However, skulls dating back to Neolithic times show trepanning was performed on individuals with no head wounds. (This may have been an attempt in some cases to deal with some form of mental disturbance or pain, where it may have been concluded that something was putting pressure on the brain.). There are obvious elements forgotten that throw light on the ‘movements’ of medical knowledge. For example, the Druids moved from Western European areas, travelled far East before coming back West to England and Ireland, gathering knowledge as they went, and they had Doctor-Priests Couple that Pagan knowledge with the later Christian movements of the clergy and trade and it is likely that there were certain centres which were founts of knowledge (NICE)34 rather than generally expected to be in practice as in the NHS.35 In this third millennium there’s not a lot that’s new which is long-term healthy under the Sun. Scientists and medicine may get excited about ‘IT Chips with everything’, but ‘chips with everything’ has not done anybody much good – we have a lot to learn!
References: Poem & Pictures: (i) ‘Don: A Poem’ (first published 1655) Researched by Brain Moffat - Anonymous Poet indicated as ‘ Mr Forbes of Brux’. (ii) Bitter Vetch (Lathyrus linifolius) - www.agronomy.uhi.ac.uk Photographer: John Wishart (iii) Soutra Aisle Hospital – Nr Fala, Midlothian, Scotland www.undisoveredscotland.co.uk (iv) Bitter Vetch (Lathyrus linifolius) - www.agronomy.uhi.ac.uk Photographer: John Wishart (v) Wharram Percy, Nr Malton, Yorkshire, England, UK
Text: 1. ‘Dieting hope for monastic elixir’ BBC New Online 30th August 2005 2. Ibid. 3. Ibid. 4. ‘Understanding Adult Obesity’ WIN Weight Control Information network http://win.niddk.nih.gov/publications/understanding.htm 5. ‘Genetics of common forms of obesity: a brief overview.’ Lyon HN, Hirschhorn JN. Children’s Hospital Boston, Boston, MA, USA. Am J Clin Nutr. 2005; 82(1 Suppl): 215S-217S. 6. ‘Obesity and endocrine disease.’ Kokkoris P, Pi-Sunyer FX. Div. of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, Hellenic Air Force General Hospital, Athens, Greece. Endocrinol Metab Clin North Am. 2003 Dec; 32(4): 895-914. 7. ‘Psychiatric medication induced obesity: an aetiologic review.’ Virk S, et al. Dept. of Psychiatry, SUNY Upstate Medical Uv., Syracuse, NY, NSA. Obes Rev. 2004 Aug; 5(3): 167-70. 8. Side Effects of Corticosteroids. http://www.nym.org/healthinfo/docs/103/doc103drugs.html Adverse effects include: susceptibility to infection, acne, excess hair growth, hypertension, accelerated osteoporosis, cataracts and glaucoma; diabetes, wasting of the muscles; menstrual irregularities, upper gastrointestinal ulcers (especially increases when patients take NSAIDs). Personality change, including irritability, insomnia, psychosis, and depression. Etc. 9. Ibid. 10. Quote : (Fr. ‘C’est une violente maistresse d’eschole que la necessite’ Michael Evquen de Montaigne: Essays (bk. 1, 47). http://www.worldofquotes.com/topic/Necessity/1/ 11. [Alcohol –risk factor for overweight] [Article in German] Meyer R, Suter PM, Vetter W. UniversitatsSpital Zurich, Depart. Fur Innere Medizin. Switzerland. Schweiz Rundsch Med Prax. 1999 Sep 23: 88(39):1555-61. 12. Lathyrus montanus/linifolius: recorded in Murdoch MacNeil’s book ‘Colonsay, one of the Hebrides’, (Edinburgh), 1910. 13. The Ecological Flora of the British Isles at the University of York. Lathyrus linifolius: Distribution: SW England, SE England, SC England, E England, NC England, S Wales, N Wales, NW England, NE England, S Scotland, E Highlands, W Highlands, N Scotland , W Ireland, SE Ireland, and NE Ireland. http://www.york.ac.uk/res/ecoflora/cfm/ecofl/Detail_ukdistribc.cfm?PLANT_NO=810510190 14. ‘A Marvellous Plant’ The Place of the Heath Pea in the Scottish Ethnobotanical Tradition by Brian Moffat: Folio 1. Issue 1 Autumn 2000. http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:EEDFGM05rUIJ:www.nls.uk/news/folio/folio1.pdf+Lathyrus+linifolius+Medieval+Herb+bitter+vetch&hl=en 15. Ibid. 16. ‘Isolation and identification of a neuroactive factor from Lathyrus latifolius.’ Ressler C, et al. Science 1961 Jul 21; 134:188-90. 17. Information on Bitter Vetch (Vicia ervila) http://www.wordwebonline.com/search.pl?w=Ervum+ervilia 18. ‘Nutritional evaluation of detoxified and raw common vetch seed (Vicia sativa L.) using diets of broilers.’ Darre MJ, et al. J Agric Food Chem. 1999 Jan; 47(1):352. 19. John Gerard (1545-1612AD): Elizabethan Herbalist and gardener wrote The Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes pub. 1597. - http://53.1911encyclopedia.org/L/LE/LENTIL.htm 20. Heraclitus of Ephesus (c. 535-475BC ), known as 'The Obscure,' was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher from Ephesus in Asia Minor. As with other pre-Socratics, his writings only survive in fragments quoted by other authors. He is famous for saying: "No man can cross the same river twice, because neither the man nor the river are the same." http://www.crescatsententia.org/archives/week_2004_01_11.html & http://www.wordwebonline.com/search.pl?w=Heraclitus Quoted by Albertus Magnus, ‘On Vegetables’ Albertus Magnus: (c.1205-1280AD): Scientist, philosopher and theologian. 21. Hippocrates ‘The Father of Medicine’: Greek physician who laid the foundations of scientific medicine by freeing medical study from the constraints of philosophical speculation and superstition. Born c. 460 BC Birthplace: Island of Cos, Greece, died c. 377 BC: Ref: Kuhn, C. G., Claudii Galeni opera omnia (Leipzig, – ; repr. Hildesheim) – Cambridge Uv. Press. 0521812429 - Galen: “On the Properties of Foodstuffs (De alimentorum facultatibus)” by Owen Powell, Dept. of Classics and Ancient History, The Uv. of Queensland – John Wilkins, Uv. of Exeter UK. 22. Claudius Galen: Physician to 5 Roman Emperors, teacher, philosopher, pharmacist and leading scientist of his day was born at Pergamum, Asia Minor on the 22 September 131AD died 201AD. Ref: Kuhn, C. G., Claudii Galeni opera omnia (Leipzig, – ; repr. Hildesheim) – Cambridge Uv. Press. 0521812429 - Galen: “On the Properties of Foodstuffs (De alimentorum facultatibus)” by Owen Powell, Dept. of Classics and Ancient History, The Uv. of Queensland – John Wilkins, Uv. of Exeter UK. 23. ‘Review of Agriculture in the Dry Areas’ Icardia Caravan Issue No. 16 June 2002 - http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:d7ptwtMAY1wJ:www.icarda.cgiar.org/Publications/Caravan/pdf/caravan16.pdf+Bitter+Vetch+hunger+suppression&hl=en 24. ‘A Marvellous Plant’ The Place of the Heath Pea in the Scottish Ethnobotanical Tradition by Brian Moffat: Folio 1. Issue 1 Autumn 2000. 25. Ibid 26. Ibid. Provision for the Poor in Time of Dearth and Scarcity’1699, with a second edition 1703 by ‘R.S., Doctor of Medicine’ (Sibbald). 27. ‘A Marvellous Plant’ The Place of the Heath Pea in the Scottish Ethnobotanical Tradition by Brian Moffat: Folio 1. Issue 1 Autumn 2000. 28. Ibid 29. ‘Quick work needed at Ancient site’ BBC News Online 9th August 2003. 30. ‘Grave reveals Medieval Caesarians’ BBC New Online 25th August 2005 & ‘History Today’ Online 1st September 2005. http://www.historytoday.com/dt_archive.news.asp?gid=30039&aid=&tgid=&amid=&g30039=x&g21010=x&g19965=x&g19963=x 31. ‘Medieval Surgeons were Advanced’ BBC News Online 5th October 2004. 32. Ibid. Quote: Dr Simon Mays, skeletal biologist at English Heritage's Centre for Archaeology. 33. Ibid. 34. Britain: The National Institute for Clinical Excellence. 35. Britain: The National Health Service. |
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