Medicine
In the traditional Japanese medicine of kampo, wounds were treated with narcissus root and wheat flour paste; the plant, however, does not appear in the modern kampo herb list. The Roman physician Aulus Cornelius Celsus listed narcissus root in De Medicina among medical herbs, described as emollient, erodent, and "powerful to disperse whatever has collected in any part of the body". In one scientific study, the ethanol extract of the bulbs was found effective in one mouse model of nociception, para-benzoquinone induced abdominal constriction, but not in another, the hot plate test.
Daffodils are grown commercially near Brecon in Powys, Wales, to produce galantamine, a drug used to combat Alzheimer's disease.
Read more about this topic: Narcissus (plant)
Famous quotes containing the word medicine:
“Good medicine is bitter to the taste.”
—Chinese proverb.
“As there is a use in medicine for poisons, so the world cannot move without rogues.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I have noticed that doctors who fail in the practice of medicine have a tendency to seek one another’s company and aid in consultation. A doctor who cannot take out your appendix properly will recommend you to a doctor who will be unable to remove your tonsils with success.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)