Dr.Kinghorn – Anu Timple

I enjoyed Dr.Kinghorn’s lecture as I have barely any knowledge about botany or its uses in medicine. As a result, I was surprised to learn facts like how 3/4 or the population relies on plants for medicine. This statistic illuminates how important nature really is for human survival, as medicine is another vital role plants have play in human survival. It was also really interesting to learn how without any advance knowledge of chemistry, ancient people figured out how to use plants for medicine, with 122 plants still being used today for medicine. It was also very interesting to learn how people have managed to exploit poisonous plants in a way that can be beneficial to humans. One interesting example was the Calabar bean. In the past, people used it as a “truth” drug in the sense if the perpetrator died from ingesting the bean, they were then guilty. Other times when the person survived, they were regarded as innocent or telling the truth. The real reason for this effect was that if the bean was broken, its poison would be absorbed and the person would perish almost immediately where if the bean was swallowed whole, the person would survive. Later, it was found that the poison in this bean was found to have a use in treating glaucoma. It is really fascinating to see how something so poisonous could be turned around so as to become an advantage instead of a disadvantage.

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