The Rosenthal Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine

and the

Institute of Economic Botany

The New York Botanical Garden

present

Alain Touwaide, Ph.D.

Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC

Botanical Medicine in the Ancient World

Monday April 16, 2007

12:00 pm to 1:00 pm*

Hammer Health Sciences Center (HHSC) Room 301

(a classroom; Directions over)

701 W. 168th Street, 3rd floor

* Feel free to bring your lunch

Dr. Alain Touwaide is affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. An international authority on medicinal plants of antiquity, he is involved in ongoing research on the topic and is preparing an exhibition. He will describe his research, the digital library of ancient botanical texts he is creating, and comment on the usefulness of this body of learning for modern medicine and science.

(See over for speaker brief biography)

Alain Touwaide, Ph.D.

Dr. Alain Touwaide obtained his Ph.D. in Classics at the University of Louvain in 1981 and his “Habilitation à diriger des recherches” from the University of Toulouse in 1997. He has been the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships and has taught at several universities in Spain, Italy, Belgium and France. Currently he is affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, researching medicinal plants of antiquity, and preparing an exhibition on the topic. His field research has been funded by the Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici (Naples, Italy) and the international scientific organization Earthwatch. In 2005, he obtained a grant from the National Institutes of Health for a four-year research project, “Medicinal Plants of Antiquity: A Computerized Database”. The project will digitize, index and analyze ancient Greek therapeutic texts (in original Greek and translation).

 
Selected publications
 
Among many scientific publications listed in PubMed are:
 
Touwaide A, De Santo NG, Aliotta G. The origins of Western herbal medicines for kidney diseases. Adv Chronic Kidney Dis. 2005 Jul;12(3):251-60. Review. 
 

Arabic urology in Byzantium. J Nephrol. 2004 Jul-Aug;17(4):583-9.

The diuretic use of Scilla from Dioscorides to the end of the 18th century. J Nephrol. 2004 Mar-Apr;17(2):342-7.

Pseudo-Galen's De Urinis: a multifactorial technique of diagnosis and a cultural interpretation of color. Am J Nephrol. 2002 Jul;22(2-3):130-5.

Edema in the Corpus Hippocraticum. Am J Nephrol. 1999;19(2):155-8.

Medicine in Byzantium (10th C. - 1453). Med Secoli. 1999;11(2):259-60.

Medicinal plants for the treatment of urogenital tract pathologies according to Dioscorides' De Materia Medica. Am J Nephrol. 1997;17(3-4):241-7.

Greek medical manuscripts: a bibliography. Newsl Soc Anc Med. 1991 Dec;(19):19-28.

Among many scholarly publications in the history of medicine are:

“The Permanence of Classical Greek Medicine in the Ottoman Empire: The Case of Dioscorides’ Materia Medica,” in Hommage au Professeur Arslan Terzioglu, ed. E. Lucius, A. Mat, Ö. Öncel, B. Özaltay, Istanbul, Isis Editions, 1999, pp. 177-200.

“Therapeutic Strategies: Drugs,” in Western Medical Thought from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, ed. M. D. Grmek, Cambridge, Harvard Univ. Press, 1998, pp. 259-272 & 390-394

 
“Thêriaka” y “Alexipharmaka” di Nicandro (with Christian Förstel, and Grégoire Aslanoff), Barcelona, Moleiro, 1998
 
“Theoretical Concepts and Problems of Greek Pharmacology in Greek Arabic Medicine: Reception and Reelaboration,” in Forum, 6, 1 (1996), Genoa, pp. 21-39
 
Farmacopea araba medievale : Codice Ayasofia 3703, 4 vols., Milan, Antea Edizioni, 1992-93
 
 

Directions: NW Corner of West 168th Street and Ft. Washington Avenue, 1 long block west of Broadway (W. 168th becomes Haven Avenue west of Ft. Washington Ave.). Go to this website for a map, http://www.cumc.columbia.edu/about/map.html. HHSC #4 on the map. There is a parking garage at W. 165^th Street & Ft. Washington Ave.