The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 279 No 7473 p410
13 October 2007

This article
Reprint   Photocopy

PDF 60K, Acrobat Reader

Our ubiquitous umbellifer

Paying attention to medicine side effects

Exploiting the world's seas

How we became the British Isles

Our ubiquitous umbellifer

Parsley, the umbelliferous plant, has an almost incredible history both in medicine and in the domestic economy. It has been said that, with the exception of the apple, it has been the focus of more superstitious beliefs than any other common inhabitant of our gardens.

Originally, it was placed in the genus Carum, but later became Apium and eventually Petroselinum. It is not indigenous to Britain, its wild habitat being Sardinia, from where it was imported and cultivated here in 1548. Since then it has become naturalised on old walls and rocks in England and Scotland.

Parsley was greatly esteemed by the ancient Greeks, who viewed it mainly for its ceremonial aspects. At the Isthmian games, chaplets of it were used to crown victors. In addition, tombs of the illustrious dead were draped with parsley wreaths and, according to Homer, horses ridden in chariot races were fed parsley leaves. Parsley and rue were made into borders in Greek gardens, but apparently never featured on the tables among edible items.

The culinary and medicinal uses of parsley have been many. The fresh leaves, finely chopped, have been included in sauces, soups, stuffings and minces, or sprinkled over cooked vegetables and salads. The stems are used both in colouring food and dyeing fabrics.

The fried leaves have been a source of tea and from the seeds apiol has been extracted. This constituent has been administered for agues and malarial disorders and is a yellow liquid with characteristic odour and acrid taste. It affects nerve centres of the head and spine and produces giddiness and deafness.

The chief use of parsley has been for its diuretic rather than its carminative, tonic and aperient actions. And its leaves have been applied in poultices to counteract the effects of insect bites and stings.

Back to Top

Paying attention to medicine side effects

A comment by the UK-based charity APRIL (Adverse Psychiatric Reactions Information Link) in the 15 September 2007 issue of New Scientist makes some pungent observations on the toll taken by adverse reactions to drugs. In 2004 research at the University of Liverpool showed that of 18,820 emergency hospital admissions 1,225 were due to adverse drug reactions, and that 10,000 deaths in UK hospitals were attributable to such reactions of which 70 per cent were preventable.

Figures from the British Medical Association suggested that as many as 250,000 admissions to hospital might be involved, with a cost to the NHS of £466m.

Relations between the UK government and the pharmaceutical industry are reputed to be unsatisfactory, with conflicts of interest between government, industry and prescribing doctors. When reactions occur, manufacturers are slow to change labels on drug packs and literature.

Doctors are not sufficiently trained to know about the metabolism and interactions of drugs and individual variations in response. Less than 10 per cent of serious drug reactions are reported, despite the yellow card scheme. Many patients are unaware that they may use the scheme themselves.

To minimise future casualties adverse drug reaction reporting must be made independent and legally enforceable. Those professionals with prescribing rights must be educated to recognise warning signs and so avoid causing unnecessary harm.

Back to Top

Exploiting the world's seas

The present arguments over who possesses remote parts of the earth and the oceans seems to me to partake of sheer madness, reminiscent of the age-old, would-be empire builders. There is a comment in the 9 August 2007 issue of Nature that examines aspects of the situation.

The issue has been raised by the recent action of the Russian submarine that planted the Russian flag deep in the sea floor beneath the north pole, which led to an argument over how far in fact national boundaries in remote places can be set in day-to-day practice.

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea offers a guide when dispute arises, but so far the US has not ratified membership of the convention and several other states have similarly failed to sign an agreement.

The current prolonged boom in places for oil, gas and minerals has brought matters to a head. Extensive exploitation of these limited resources now makes the management of the world’s oceans tricky in the extreme.

Oceanography is unfortunately linked with the material and military exploitation of territories of the seas and their inhabitants. The precise extent of a continental shelf has come to determine rights over valuable natural resources.

The convention sets rules for shipping, prohibits piracy and governs passage through territorial waters and considers pollution. There is a right to conduct scientific research anywhere not under national control, subject to certain safeguards. However, the arguments continue and are likely to do so for some time since no nation likes to have itself regarded as weak.

Back to Top

How we became the British Isles

It has been argued that half a million years ago the event or events occurred that virtually separated our island from mainland Europe. There is an account in the 19 July 2007 issue of Nature describing how probably this all happened.

Britain was once part of the European mainland some 450,000 years ago, when there occurred a major extension of a continental ice sheet into lowland areas of central Europe and Britain. Ice advanced across the emergent North Sea floor from southern Scandinavia, blocking the rivers that then flowed northward into the Atlantic Ocean and creating an immense glacial lake, damming the higher ground to the south and fed by rivers from much of western Europe.

The lowest point of this dam, about 30 metres above today’s sea level, was where we now see the Strait of Dover. When this barrier was overtopped the flow became torrential.

It has been calculated that one million cubic metres of water per second must have flowed for months between 200,000 and 450,000 years ago. This flood carved the sea floor into valleys, some of them 10 kilometres wide and 50 metres deep. The main source of the water was a glacial lake occupying what is now the southern North Sea, fed not only by glaciers but also by the rivers Rhine and Thames.

There were at least two such phenomena about this time. Moreover, there is evidence that the changes may have had an influence on the pattern of human occupation of the area concerned. Lower Palaeolithic records of human activity in the south of our islands indicate regular episodes of colonisation from mainland Europe about that time.