Quid pro quo

All too often ancient herbal and other remedies have been dismissed as simply folklore, of no relevance to medical science. John Riddles approach, however, has been to explore the history of drugs with the hypothesis that ancient and medieval medicines were effective - a methodology that he expounds in the final essay (hitherto unpublished). Indeed, he shows, both from detailed case-studies and from the comparison of the listings given by classical and medieval authorities with those in modern pharmacopoeias, that our ancestors had discovered and made effective use of many of the drugs used in medicine today, from antiseptics and analgesics to oral contraceptives, even chemotherapy for cancer. There is the suggestion, therefore, that more careful examination and identification of the drugs used in the past may reveal chemicals that can be exploited anew. Central to these studies is the investigation of how a drug was used and how knowledge about it was transmitted - and perhaps also distorted in the process - from the Classical world through the Middle Ages. Les anciens remdes, phytothrapie et autres, ont trop souvent t mis aux rangs du folklore et considrs comme nayant aucun rapport avec la science mdicale. Lapproche de John Riddle, cependant, a t dexplorer lhistoire des drogues, en prenant pour hypothse lefficacit de la mdecine ancienne et mdivale - une mthodologie quil expose dans son dernier essai (jusqu prsent jamais publi). En effet, il dmontre partir de cas dtudes dtaills et de la comparaison tablie entre les listages fournis par les autorits antiques et mdivales et ceux des pharmacopes modernes, que nos anctres avaient dcouvert et mis bon escient lutilisation de nombreux remdes dont se sert la mdecine lheure actuelle: des antiseptiques et analgsiques, aux contraceptifs oraux et mme jusqu la chimiothrapie pour le cancer. Sugge