Trease and Evans' pharmacognosy

THE LANCET

Trease and Evans’ pharmacognosy Fourteenth Edition.-W C Evans. London: WB Saunders. 1996.Pp 612.€40. ISBN 0-7020-1899-6.

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Plants used in herbal medicine, including Asian and Oriental medicine and in homeopathy featured in the previous edition, and this section has been greatly in the : fourteenth edition, which now covers Oils in the i apY, the use Of Chinese herbs in and the Plants used in African traditional m x k i n e . i Evans is a well-resPected Phamai coWosist and his work is supported i a m m b e r of chapters contributed i acknowledged experts in their i area. The book is liberally i merited With references for further i reading. Most of the world’s Population i continues to On plants for medicine and currently, Some 50% of the i world’s top-selling western Phamai ceuticals have chemical structures found in based On nature. This latter statistic has prei vailed Over the last decade and there is no doubt *at the Plant kingdom i continue to give rise cornpounds that Prove to be starting i points for the discovery and development Of new medicines for the future. i Trease and Evans’ has long been a text for Stui dents Of pharmacy. The fourteenth edition also be kept to hand i by anyone who has a interest in the Origin Of medicines Or in the con: tribution and future potential Of plant products in medicine and pharmacy. : The book is One for dipping into time and time again.

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How many scientific texts open with a i you discover how to identify the best sentence that explains the topic, I quality rhubarb, and how to make wonder? In this case, it is a vital : and use a betel quid, as well as the requirement since the term is little origin and therapeutic use of a modused beyond the immediate aficiona- i ern natural product derived antidos of the subject. Pharmacognosy is cancer medicine (eg etoposide), the the study of those natural substances, i source of its natural parent (podophyllotoxin), the biosynthetic principally plants, that find use in medicine, W C Evans explains. The i precursors of the class of chemicals to term implies, and the fourteenth ediwhich the medicine belongs (lignans), tion of Trease and Evans’ definitive i and the taxonomic classification of book on the subject covers in its the plant species (Podophyllum peltachapters, aspects of plant morphol- i tum) that produces these compounds? ogy, anatomy and taxonomy, herbal And would it also describe the key medicine, pharmacology, phyto- i characteristic botanical features of the plant parts in which the chemical class chemistry and chromatography and commercial production and standard- i occurs, the nature of analogues, the isation of natural products. i techniques used for authentication Over the years since the first ediand analysis, and an estimate of the anticipated yields of the chemicals of tion appeared in 1934, successive editions of Trease and Evans’ chart the i commercial interest in related species and cultivars? All these aspects are evolution of pharmacognosy. The predominantly botanical aspects of i covered in the chapter on the important tumour inhibitors from plants. the early editions have given way in Chapters on antiprotozoal agents the most recent ones to introductions i to secondary-metabolite biosynthesis from plants, on antihepatotoxic and and to overviews of the occurrence i hypoglycaemic agents, on biologically and mechanisms of action of active compounds from marine chemotherapeutic agents. This trend i sources, and on colouring and has continued since the publication of flavouring agents are new in this edithe thirteenth edition in 1989. The i tion. Monographs on the other increasing popularity of complemennotable plant-derived pharmaceutitary systems of medicine is also : cals, including the opiate analgesics, cardiac glycosides, corticosteroids, acknowledged in an expanded section in the fourteenth edition. In this i anthraquinone laxatives, volatile oil respect, Trease and Evans’ is unique carminatives &c, are clustered by in its coverage of the contribution of i chemical type (eg alkaloids, saponins, i plants to both orthodox and complesteroids, phenolics) in the section on Melanie, O,Neill mentary systems of medicine. i p h a ~ a c o p o e i a land related drugs of i Glaxo wellcome Medicines Research Centre. : Stevenage, Hefts SG2 2NY. UK In which other single work could i biological origin.

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Facing death Howard M Spiro. Mary G McCrea Curnen, Lee Palmer Wandel. New Haven: Yale University Press. 1996.Pp 212. $27.50.ISBN 0-300-06349-0.

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ing death: the medical battle”. A resident talks frankly about medicine’s “fundamental inattention to dying” and describes how technology often displaces compassionate care at the

Bacon wrote that “Men fear death as i the recurrent themes addressed in children fear to go into the dark”. FacingDeath. The stated premise of the book is to :* death bed. He writes of a dying man’s And while that maxim is undeniably i i fear of being abandoned by his physi“specifically address the concerns of true across culture, time, and circum: cians and argues that “comfort care” stance, for physicians, and other i physicians and nurses” when it comes : important services health-care providers, death takes on to facing death. Through twenty-two i is ‘‘One Of the another ominous aspect perhaps as i brief essays, the contributors explore that medicine can Offer”. In another dreadful as fear itself: failure. Healththe reactions that care providers, i section, an AIDS physician poi@antly care providers’ tendency to view i clergy, historians, and philosophers how the deaths Of his young death as a professional failure, and have towards the subject-both from Patients from this epidemic therefore, to “keep death at bay” even i a personal and social perspective. i have enabled him to come to terms Among the most effective of the withthelossofhisownfather. Instead when the consequences are “prolonged dying” and great emotional i essays, both in terms of content and i of retreating into the security of ‘‘med(and financial) costs to terminal quality of writing, are those found in : icalisation” and emotional detachpatients and their families, is one of ; the first half of the book on “witness- i ment, he expressed his grief and

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Vol348 December 14, 1996

1645