Ordine și Haos. Mit și magie în cultura tradițională româneasca by Andrei Oișteanu

Medicinal plants with Vrana-Shodhana category are having predominance of Katu (pungent), Tikta (bitter) and Kashaya (astriengent) Rasa. The study suggests that 43 medicinal plants have Vrana-Shodhana activity, 48 have Vrana-Ropana and 62 have both Vrana-Shodhana and Vrana-Ropana potential. The contemporary information about wound-healing mechanism was gathered from PubMed to interpitate the rational use of plants in the various stages of wound healing.

Review of Sushruta Samhita was done to gather wound-healing medicinal plants pharmacodynamics attributes were gatherd from various Nighantus to understand their role in wound healing. To review and systematically analyze wound-healing medicinal plants and their modus-operandi on the basis of pharmacodynamics attributes, i.e., Rasa (taste), Veerya (potency), and Vipaka (biotransformation) in the various stages of healing. The effectivee management of wound is necessary in the immunocompromised and chronic wounds patients as. There are no published data available on these wound-healing medicinal plants of Sushruta Samhita. In Sushruta Samhita, various medicinal plants as single and compound formulations having Vrana-Shodhana (wound cleansing) and Vrana-Ropana (wound healing) potential are enumerated. By referring to the aforementioned healing herbs, we discover that the binary scientific name - regional name reveals a linguistically captivating plant universe. The regional names, on the one hand being multiple, on the other hand being diverse, impose a nomenclature that enhances the identified symbol (phytomorph, anthropomorph, avimorph, zoomorph, etc.), depending on the ethnographic area of the country. Even if most scientific names, related to phytonyms, are of Latin origin, we note that there are also exceptions (for example, a term of Greek origin and another of Roman origin – Atropa belladonna – or a term that reminds us of the legendary Achilles, and the other of Latin origin – Achillea millefolium).

The scientific name is intended to stop possible confusions that arise when two different plants have identical regional names.

By referring to a few healing herbs (belladonna, yarrow), using as a reference point both the scientific (scholarly) denominative and the folk (naive) models, we underline the dividing line between scientific thinking and empirical thinking.

Ordine și Haos. Mit și magie în cultura tradițională româneasca by Andrei Oișteanu