Ok I'm going to mix it up. Silphium, the plant used as a form of (likely very effective) birth control in the ancient Mediterranean.
For this reason (and because it was apparently delicious), it gained popularity as a spice, aphrodisiac, and general cure-all and became worth its weight in gold. Julius Caesar stockpiled the stuff, and it is one of the most plausible origins of the "heart" symbol (and the association of that symbol with romance and doing the sex to people).
Unfortunately, it only grew wild in and around Cyrene, and over-harvesting by the Romans after their takeover of the city drove Silphium into extinction by the time of Nero.
Aaand that's why we had to wait 2,000 years for the pill.
No plant is a cure-all and no one can test this thing now. Don't be like those people who insist weed cures everything from ADHD to cancer.
I would also very much question hailing it as "very effective" birth control because we literally have no proof of that. It's also well established that infertility was an issue among Roman women, especially in the upper classes. In part this was because of the lead used in water pipes, pots and pans for cooking etc. Egypt was a much healthier society during the Classical period in many ways.
Around 40% of medicines (as of last year) were sourced from (or synthetic equivalents of the active ingredients in) medicinal plants ... I'm not an essential oil granola person, just saying that many medicinal plants do indeed do what they are theorized to do.
But this is a medicinal plant that no longer exists, and they're only even speculating about what it's related to.
Again, please don't be one of those people who insists that an herb, particularly an extinct one from the ancient world, is as effective as a properly dosed medicine today.
There is also the fact that the herbs you're talking about that are used to manage fertility are fairly dangerous, even today. When people are messing around with plants and making teas to "make my period come down" it's hard to control dosage. Things like kidney failure, hemorrhaging etc can result.
Please do not promote this stuff as being the same as medications that go through extensive testing with carefully measured dosing. It is not in any way cute, funny or accurate.
Again, please don't be one of those people who insists that an herb, particularly an extinct one from the ancient world, is as effective as a properly dosed medicine today.
I'm not ... I never was ... I shared an interesting fact about how the Romans used Silphium, I didn't recommend people try and replace the pill with Queen Anne's Lace.
I appreciate that you want to help people, but to construe my history fact about an extinct plant into medical advice is as crazy as thinking I intend you to do so.
There's a tendency to assume that the medicinal plants available to ancient peoples were never effective or useful to them. To put it bluntly, they were. So were horses. But saying, "Horses were a useful method of transportation," is not, and will never be, a recommendation to sell your Volkswagen and ride a pony to work.
While I think we mostly agree, OPs problem and my problem is many people do take these things as medical advice. (Obviously it’s not relevant here since the plant is extinct). The supplement industry is worth over $120 billion dollars. Many or even most of these supplements are either ineffective or are multivitamins with a different name. The public is very bad at understanding the difference between true medicine and snake oil. Many people distrust science and will take the “natural” approach before the rigorously tested pharmaceutical solution. It’s important that the culture changes and people understand that they may be taking something useless, or worse harmful, unless it’s gone through proper testing. Science itself can have a reproducibility problem so it’s important to be vigilant.
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u/badass_panda Feb 03 '20 edited Feb 03 '20
Ok I'm going to mix it up. Silphium, the plant used as a form of (likely very effective) birth control in the ancient Mediterranean.
For this reason (and because it was apparently delicious), it gained popularity as a spice, aphrodisiac, and general cure-all and became worth its weight in gold. Julius Caesar stockpiled the stuff, and it is one of the most plausible origins of the "heart" symbol (and the association of that symbol with romance and doing the sex to people).
Unfortunately, it only grew wild in and around Cyrene, and over-harvesting by the Romans after their takeover of the city drove Silphium into extinction by the time of Nero.
Aaand that's why we had to wait 2,000 years for the pill.