Medicinal plants with neurological effects
This group includes the most potent, often very poisonous medicinal plants. They are usually those in which the active constituent is a plant base, oralkaloid. Alkaloids are very widespread in the plant kingdom, but especially the bryophytes, apocynums, solanaceae, poppies and butterflies are rich in alkaloids, whereas they are only exceptionally found in the nests of flowers and in the anemones, so that one would almost be inclined to think that there might be some mysterious connection between the morphological constitution of plants and their alkaloid content and the quality of these alkaloids. In some plants, such as the poppy or the bark of the cinchona, there is a whole series of alkaloids, but these alkaloids are usually chemically closely related to each other, and are mostly isomers. It is also a general rule that in plants with herbaceous constitution alkaloids are mostly found in fruits and seeds, whereas in woody plants they are also mostly found in the bark. Not so long ago, alkaloids could only be produced from plants, but since the early 1980s there has been an increasing number of alkaloids produced by chemists in the laboratory by artificial synthesis. This recent achievement in chemistry is of great importance from a general medical and public health point of view, because alkaloids obtained by synthesis are much cheaper than those obtained from plants and their effects are mostly identical; they differ mainly only physically, e.g. the fact that artificially synthesised alkaloids usually do not affect the plane of polarised light (inactive), whereas their brothers in plants deflect the plane of polarised light (usually to the left). The alkaloids are the most potent poisons, but they are also very important from a medical point of view. Paracelsus, a Swiss physician of the 16th century with a fiery mind, said: ‘The greatest poison is also the greatest medicine’. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule. The following are some of the better known plants:
- Burdock (poisonous),Conium maculatum
- Cat’s root, Valeriana officinalis
- Poison caraway (poisonous), Aethusa cynapium
- Knotweed (poisonous), Cicuta virosa
- Arnica, Arnica montana
- Poppy, Papaver somniferum
- Nadragulya (poisonous), Atropa belladonna
- Bitter almond (poisonous), Aygdala amara
- Tobacco, Herba nicotianae
- Celandine (poisonous), Aconitum napellus
Source from Hungarian medicinal plants, their production, sale, effects and medicinal use, Dr. Ferenc Darvas and Dr Gyula Magyary-Kossa, 1925, Budapest, published by Atheneum literary and printing company.