Titel
Challenging the Biomedical Notion of ‘Active Substance’: The Botanical Plasticity of Tibetan Medical Formulas
Autor*in
Herbert Schwabl
PADMA AG
Abstract
Sowa Rigpa (Tibetan medicine) has been practiced across vast regions of Central and South Asia for centuries. In this medical tradition, it is common practice to dynamically adapt the mainly herbal formulas according to the regional flora and local conditions, and to use local variants of ingredients. Consequently, one Tibetan ingredient name within a specific formula can signify a variety of therapeutically fitting botanical items, which appear quite different from the perspective of modern taxonomy. This has led many researchers to understand the botanical plasticity of Tibetan medical formulas as misidentifications. We develop an alternative approach, exploring the advantages of this plasticity as a necessary practice to fulfill economic and therapeutic needs. This perspective piece questions the biomedical paradigm of single ‘active substances,’ since botanically unrelated plants with different chemical compositions can be similarly therapeutically effective. From a systems biology perspective, network pharmacology lets us understand the correspondence of illness and medicine as a semiotic process in which herbal formulations act via their ‘pleiotropic signatures’: complex webs of signal pathways that connect and act on multiple levels of organization in the body.
Stichwort
Sowa RigpaTibetan herbal formulasnetwork pharmacologyactive substancesubstitution
Objekt-Typ
Sprache
Englisch [eng]
Persistent identifier
phaidra.univie.ac.at/o:1159632
Erschienen in
Titel
HIMALAYA
Band
39
Ausgabe
1
ISSN
2471-3716
Erscheinungsdatum
2019
Publication
Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies (ANHS)
Fördergeber
Austrian Science Fund (FWF) — P30804-G24
Erscheinungsdatum
2019
Zugänglichkeit
Universität Wien | Universitätsring 1 | 1010 Wien | T
+43-1-4277-0