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Ann Thorac Surg 2002;74:1291
© 2002 The Society of Thoracic Surgeons

Correspondence

Hemostatic herbs

Alejandro Aris, MD, PhDa

a Cardiac Surgery Service, Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau, Av San Antonio M. Claret 167, 08025 Barcelona, Spain

e-mail: aaris{at}hsp.santpau.es

To the Editor

I read the interesting letter by Dr Hollaus [1] about military medicine in ancient Greece. He wrote: "Bleeding was stopped with herbs that also are described to have analgesic effects. Unfortunately, the used plants are not described and still remain unknown."

I believe that I have the answer. The plant with these properties is dittany plants (Origanum dictamnus). It is mentioned in the Aeneid by Vergil, who lived between 70 and 19 BC. The poem describes the feats of Aeneas, a Trojan hero, who fled west after the fall of Troy and fought in Latium, where he became an ancestor of the Romans. In the 12th book, the hero, son of Anchises and Aphrodite, is wounded by an arrow. Seeing that the physician Iapis is unable to remove the arrow, Aphrodite (Venus in Roman mythology) uses dittany to cure her son:

A branch of healing dittany she brought Which in the Cretan fields with care she sought: Rough is the stern, which woolly leafs surround; The leafs with flow’rs, the flow’rs with purple crown’d, Well known to wounded goats; a sure relief To draw the pointed steel, and ease the grief.

(Apparently, wounded goats in Crete, where the plant grew, used to eat dittany to decrease bleeding.) After the herbal concoction is applied, the tip of the arrow is easily and bloodlessly removed:
The leech, unknowing of superior art which aids the cure, with this foments the part; And in a moment ceas’d the raging smart. Stanch’d is the blood, and in the bottom stands: The steel, but scarcely touch’d with tender hands, Moves up, and follows of its own accord, And health and vigor are at once restor’d.

The scene—Aeneas wounded, his son weeping, Iapis exploring the wound, and Aphrodite carrying dittany—is depicted in a Pompeian fresco on display at the National Archeological Museum in Naples.

In a sense, we could consider dittany a predecessor of aprotinin.

References

  1. Hollaus P.H. Military medicine in ancient Greece. Ann Thorac Surg 2001;72:1793.[Free Full Text]




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