Sorry for more on Latin medicinal nomenclature

[Guest guest]

I just ran an experiment on Gradenia Fructus (not Gardeniae Fructus)

and found all sorts of entries, even on an NIH site, even though this

is wrong. Should be Gardeniae Fructus if you're going to do it this

way. This is the kind of compound mistake I'm afraid such methodology

is going to create. Why is it so hard to explain how Latin

pharmacological nomenclature is put together -- that Fructus means

fruit and Gardeniae means of Gardenia? IMHO, once we start screwing

around with this stuff, seems to me we're only going to make more of a

muddle.

[Guest guest]

Bob,

 

I believe the standard is the genus (species) part, as in the new materia

medica. Most of the Western herbal literature I have looked at uses this method.

I looked into this a bit when I was preparing my ms and this is what I came up

with. I'm sorry I don't have a reference handy on this at the moment but I will

see if I can find it (one) and relay it to you.

 

The second issue you raised is a matter of people not knowing how to transform

the Latin binomial into the pharmaceutical name. It is a common error. Frankly,

not being a Latin scholar, I could never understand why the spelling changed

when going from the Latin binomial to the pharmaceutical name. Perhaps there is

a Latin scholar on the list who can answer this question.

 

Thomas

 

 

 

 

Faculty Department of Complementary and Alternative Medicine

John Burns School of Medicine University of Hawai'i Manoa

Honolulu, HI

 

www.sourcepointherbs.org

 

 

[Guest guest]

You will find all sorts of entries when you do a search for the other

incorrect form, Fructus Gardenia, as well. So I do not understand why a

change in word order would create more confusion.

As for that word order:

I understood that the part + plant order is tradition.

But I also understood that it is not true that there is a grammatical

rule in Latin that says that the part name should come first. Radix

Pinelliae and Pinelliae Radix are both correct forms. We can safely

assume that no Roman would misunderstand either form.

Everybody who has experience in translating Latin knows that you have

to look at the endings of words, not at the order in which they are

written. So, again, I do not see why the plant + part order should

create more confusion.

Besides being more practical in an index, it is also (a little bit)

more practical to have the plant names in front if you want to memorize

or study lists of medicinals.

 

Herman

 

 

 

, " Bob Flaws "

<pemachophel2001 wrote:

>

> I just ran an experiment on Gradenia Fructus (not Gardeniae Fructus)

> and found all sorts of entries, even on an NIH site, even though this

> is wrong. Should be Gardeniae Fructus if you're going to do it this

> way. This is the kind of compound mistake I'm afraid such methodology

> is going to create. Why is it so hard to explain how Latin

> pharmacological nomenclature is put together -- that Fructus means

> fruit and Gardeniae means of Gardenia? IMHO, once we start screwing

> around with this stuff, seems to me we're only going to make more of a

> muddle.

>