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F1000Research 2020Enveloped viruses such as SAR-CoV-2 are sensitive to heat and are destroyed by temperatures tolerable to humans. All mammals use fever to deal with infections and heat... (Review)
Review
Enveloped viruses such as SAR-CoV-2 are sensitive to heat and are destroyed by temperatures tolerable to humans. All mammals use fever to deal with infections and heat has been used throughout human history in the form of hot springs, saunas, hammams, steam-rooms, sweat-lodges, steam inhalations, hot mud and poultices to prevent and treat respiratory infections and enhance health and wellbeing. This paper reviews the evidence for using heat to treat and prevent viral infections and discusses potential cellular, physiological and psychological mechanisms of action. In the initial phase of infection, heat applied to the upper airways can support the immune system's first line of defence by supporting muco-ciliary clearance and inhibiting or deactivating virions where they first lodge. This may be further enhanced by the inhalation of steam containing essential oils with anti-viral, mucolytic and anxiolytic properties. Heat applied to the whole body can further support the immune system's second line of defence by mimicking fever and activating innate and acquired immune defences and building physiological resilience. Heat-based treatments also offer psychological benefits and enhanced mental wellness by focusing attention on positive action, enhancing relaxation and sleep, inducing 'forced-mindfulness', and invoking the power of positive thinking and 'remembered wellness'. Heat is a cheap, convenient and widely accessible therapeutic modality and while no clinical protocols exist for using heat to treat COVID-19, protocols that draw from traditional practices and consider contraindications, adverse effects and infection control measures could be developed and implemented rapidly and inexpensively on a wide scale. While there are significant challenges in implementing heat-based therapies during the current pandemic, these therapies present an opportunity to integrate natural medicine, conventional medicine and traditional wellness practices, and support the wellbeing of both patients and medical staff, while building community resilience and reducing the likelihood and impact of future pandemics.
Topics: Humans; Betacoronavirus; Coronavirus Infections; COVID-19; Hot Temperature; Hyperthermia, Induced; Oils, Volatile; Pandemics; Pneumonia, Viral; SARS-CoV-2; Steam
PubMed: 32742639
DOI: 10.12688/f1000research.23299.2 -
Critical Military Studies Oct 2019The subject of British military medicine during the First World War has long been a fruitful one for historians of gender. From the bodily inspection of recruits and...
The subject of British military medicine during the First World War has long been a fruitful one for historians of gender. From the bodily inspection of recruits and conscripts through the expanding roles of women as medical care providers to the physical and emotional aftermath of conflict experienced by men suffering from war-related wounds and illness, the medical history of the war has shed important light on how the war shaped British masculinities and femininities as cultural, subjective and embodied identities. Much of this literature has, however, focused on the gendered identities of female nurses and sick and wounded servicemen. Increasingly, however, more complex understandings of the ways in which medical caregiving in wartime shaped the gender identities of male caregivers are starting to emerge. This article explores some of these emerging understandings of the masculinity of male medical caregivers, and their relationship to the wider literature around the complex and sometimes contradictory relationship between warfare and medicine. It examines the ways in which the masculine identity of male medical caregivers from the ranks of the Royal Army Medical Corps, namely stretcher bearers and medical orderlies, was perceived and represented both by the men themselves and those they cared for. In doing so it argues that total war played a crucial role in shaping social and cultural perceptions of caregiving as a gendered practice. It also identifies particular tensions between continuity and change in social understandings of medical care as a gendered practice which would continue to shape twentieth-century British society in the war's aftermath.
PubMed: 32984444
DOI: 10.1080/23337486.2019.1677040 -
Cirugia Y Cirujanos 2021To analyze a medical prescription from the 18th century in the New Kingdom of Granada, nowadays Colombia, used in the treatment of soft tissue injuries, specifically... (Review)
Review
OBJECTIVE
To analyze a medical prescription from the 18th century in the New Kingdom of Granada, nowadays Colombia, used in the treatment of soft tissue injuries, specifically wounds and skin ulcers.
METHOD
A documentary search was conducted in the Cipriano Rodríguez Santamaria Historical Archive of the Octavio Arizmendi Posada Library, at Universidad de La Sabana (Chía, Colombia), and a review of the literature available in electronic databases.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION
The colonial medical prescription mentions the benefits of lead acetate in poultice for inflammatory processes in general and skin alterations. However, its use is not recommended due to its potential cytotoxic effect at tissue level in various organs.
Topics: Humans; Plant Extracts; Prescriptions
PubMed: 33498064
DOI: 10.24875/CIRU.20000745 -
BioMed Research International 2021Wallflower () is employed as a popular herbal drug in traditional Persian medicine. Topical formulations including cerates, lotions, sitz baths, and poultices for...
Wallflower () is employed as a popular herbal drug in traditional Persian medicine. Topical formulations including cerates, lotions, sitz baths, and poultices for inflammatory disorders such as arthritis, anal fissure, endometriosis, and mastitis are known. However, there is no monograph in current pharmacopoeia for the wallflower drug. The present study is aimed to screen anti-inflammatory activity of wallflower and perform quality control and characterization tests for different organs of the herb. In this regard, albumin denaturation activity, macroscopic and microscopic, phytochemical, HPTLC, and FT-IR characteristics were investigated. Wallflower showed strong anti-inflammatory activity compared to diclofenac sodium. The root (1.25, 2.5, and 5 mg/mL) and flower (10 mg/mL) extract exhibited higher anti-inflammatory activities than that of other plant organs at the same concentrations. Moreover, total ash was found higher in aerial parts (21.52 ± 0.06%) than flower (11.01 ± 0.03%), root (5.03 ± 0.03%), and seed (6.95 ± 0.06%), while water-soluble ash was higher in seed (34.89 ± 0.26%) than flower (5.00 ± 0.03%), aerial parts (7.16 ± 0.06%), and root (5.04 ± 0.01%). Acid-insoluble ash and sulphated ash were higher in root (9.50 ± 0.04%) and aerial part (28.37 ± 0.57%), respectively. In addition, loss on drying was ranged from 2.20 ± 0.20% in flowers to 6.00 ± 0.10% in aerial parts. On the other hand, HPTLC analysis verified cardenolide compounds in all organs of the herb, and quercetin was detected in the flavonoid fingerprint of acid hydrolysed flowers. According to FT-IR results, the observed spectral region at ~3500 cm attributed to -OH stretching vibration. Also, C-H (~2900-2950 cm), isothiocyanate (~2340 cm), -C=O (~1740 cm), conjugated C=C of the aromatic ring (~1650 cm), and structure of the aromatic group (~1200-1000 cm) were monitored. This work is the first study to the best of our knowledge, suggesting wallflower as a potential drug candidate with the basis for a monograph in addition to initial anti-inflammatory data.
Topics: Anti-Inflammatory Agents; Erysimum; Flavonoids; Flowers; Phytochemicals; Plant Extracts; Quality Control; Quercetin; Seeds; Spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared
PubMed: 34212031
DOI: 10.1155/2021/5526644