Institute for Agricultural and Forest Systems in the Mediterranean, National Research Council, Via Cavour 4-6, 87036 Rende (CS), Italy.
Institute of Neurological Sciences, National Research Council, C.da Burga, 87050 Mangone (CS), Italy.
J Ethnopharmacol. 2018 Jan 10;210:417-433. doi: 10.1016/j.jep.2017.09.005. Epub 2017 Sep 9.
Headache has been recognized since antiquity. From the late nineteenth to the early to mid-twentieth century, Italian folk remedies to treat headache were documented in a vast corpus of literature sources.
The purpose of this paper is to bring to light the plant-based treatments utilized by Italian folk medicine to heal headache in an attempt to discuss these remedies from a modern pharmacological point of view. Moreover, we compare the medical applications described by Hippocrates, Pliny the Elder, Dioscorides, Galen and Serenus Sammonicus with those utilized by Italian folk medicine to check if they result from a sort of continuity of use by over two thousand years.
A detailed search of the scientific data banks such as Medline and Scopus was undertaken to uncover recent results concerning the anti-inflammatory, anti-nociceptive and analgesic activities of the plants. Fifty-eight (78.4%) plant-based remedies have shown in vivo, in vitro or in human trials a large spectrum of anti-inflammatory, anti-nociceptive and analgesic activities. Moreover, thirty-one of remedies (41.9%) were already included in the pharmacopoeia between the 5th century BC and the 2nd century AD.
Italian folk medicine could be a promising source of knowledge and could provide evidences for active principles that have not as of yet been fully used for their potential.
头痛自古以来就被人们所认识。从 19 世纪末到 20 世纪初，意大利民间疗法治疗头痛的方法被记录在大量的文献资料中。
本文旨在揭示意大利民间医学中用于治疗头痛的植物疗法，试图从现代药理学的角度来讨论这些疗法。此外，我们将希波克拉底、老普林尼、迪奥斯科里季斯、盖伦和塞雷努斯·萨莫尼克乌斯所描述的医学应用与意大利民间医学中使用的方法进行比较，以检查它们是否是两千多年来连续使用的结果。
通过详细搜索 Medline 和 Scopus 等科学数据库，我们发现了最近关于植物的抗炎、抗伤害和镇痛活性的研究结果。58 种（78.4%）基于植物的疗法在体内、体外或人体试验中显示出广泛的抗炎、抗伤害和镇痛活性。此外，31 种疗法（41.9%）已经被收录在公元前 5 世纪至公元 2 世纪的药典中。
意大利民间医学可能是一个有前途的知识来源，并能为尚未充分利用其潜力的活性成分提供证据。
