The Experts below are selected from a list of 12 Experts worldwide ranked by ideXlab platform

Kuffner Emily - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • Children of love and purity: Mandrake, Monarchy, and Botanical Futurism in Early Modern Spain
    'University of Texas Press', 2020
    Co-Authors: Kuffner Emily
    Abstract:

    This article examines representations of female fertility and marital sexuality at a time of reproductive crisis. In 1665, King Philip IV of Spain’s death, leaving the four-year-old Charles II as his sole potential heir, created a perceived crisis for Habsburg succession. I analyze a text by the royal family’s personal physician, Tomás Murillo y Velarde, which promotes the Mandrake Plant as a fertility aid, arguing that Murillo’s herbal medical text grapples with two fundamental paradoxes of early modern marriage: that patriarchal inheritance depends upon the procreative capacity of the female body, which is described in medical texts as inherently defective, and that procreation cannot take place without sexual pleasure, deemed sinful even within marriage in the early modern imaginary. Murillo uses examples of biblical women and female Plants and animals to suggest that an active role in sexual relations can be licit without loss of chastity, displacing sexual desire onto the aphrodisiac Plant, thereby creating a chaste form of active female sexuality even as he is careful to bound this within male authority in the form of the physician. Consequently, Murillo’s treatise contests norms of female comportment that urged subservience, making medical literature a site that resisted the general Counter-Reformation trend towards reinforcement of female subordination within marriage. At the same time, his account of fertility and the reproductive futurism of the Spanish state clearly place blame for infertility and divine disfavor on the female body. Thus, his account both upholds and contests hegemony as it reinstates reproductive futurism through and over the female body

Dircksen M. - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • Mandrake FROM ANTIQUITY TO HARRY POTTER
    'Stellenbosch University', 2012
    Co-Authors: Van Den Berg M., Dircksen M.
    Abstract:

    After an introductory paragraph which supplies a cursory overview of all the ancient sources on Mandrake, a well known and popular drug amongst the ancients, the article provides a systemization of information obtained from the three most significant ancient accounts of the Mandrake Plant. Dioscorides’ Greek text contains the more precise account and is supplemented by the Latin works of Cornelius Celsus and Pliny the Elder. These authors give detailed information on the Plant’s physical appearance, the methods employed to harvest it, instructions on how to administer it, the dosages prescribed, the effects of overdosing, its toxicity and its soporific, anesthetic and other (alleged or real) medicinal properties. The second part of the article highlights some literary references to Mandrake in sources as diverse as the Bible, a Shakespearean play and Rowling’s recent best selling Harry Potter series. Finally a description of Mandrake in modern pharmacological terms leads to some conclusions regarding its actual medicinal and homeopathic usefulness

Ankit Agarwal - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • The future of anaesthesiology
    Wolters Kluwer Medknow Publications, 2012
    Co-Authors: Ankit Agarwal
    Abstract:

    There was an era when bark of Mandrake Plant, boiled in wine was used to administer anesthesia. Ether, after reigning the kingdom of anaesthesiology for more than a century, came to be superseded by newer and newer agents. Anaesthesiology has witnessed tremendous developments since infancy. The introduction of advanced airway adjuncts, labour analgesia, patient controlled analgesia, fibreoptics, Bispectral Index monitors, workstations, simulators and robotic surgeries are only to name a further few. Anaesthesia for robotic surgery received much impetus and is still a dream to come true in many countries. But then, the rapid spin in technology and fast sophistication of medical field has even surpassed this. The next event to venture is entry of robots into human body made possible by a culmination of intricate medicine and fine technology that is Nanotechnology. This article briefly introduces the field of nanotechnology in relation to its potential benefits to the field of anaesthesiology. As with any new tecnique or application, nanotechnology as applied to anaesthesiology has tremendous potential for research and exploration. This article therefore orients the reader′s mind towards the immense potential and benefits that can be tapped by carrying out further studies and experimentations.The literature was searched using databases, peer reviewed journals and books for over a period of one year (till December 2011). The search was carried out using keywords as nanotechnology, robotics, anesthesiology etc. Initially a master database was formed including human as well as animal studies. Later on the broad topic area was narrowed down to developments in nanotechnology as applied to anesthesiology. Further filtering of search results were done based on selection of researches and developments relating to local, regional and general anesthesia as well as critical care and pain and palliative care

Van Den Berg M. - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • Mandrake FROM ANTIQUITY TO HARRY POTTER
    'Stellenbosch University', 2012
    Co-Authors: Van Den Berg M., Dircksen M.
    Abstract:

    After an introductory paragraph which supplies a cursory overview of all the ancient sources on Mandrake, a well known and popular drug amongst the ancients, the article provides a systemization of information obtained from the three most significant ancient accounts of the Mandrake Plant. Dioscorides’ Greek text contains the more precise account and is supplemented by the Latin works of Cornelius Celsus and Pliny the Elder. These authors give detailed information on the Plant’s physical appearance, the methods employed to harvest it, instructions on how to administer it, the dosages prescribed, the effects of overdosing, its toxicity and its soporific, anesthetic and other (alleged or real) medicinal properties. The second part of the article highlights some literary references to Mandrake in sources as diverse as the Bible, a Shakespearean play and Rowling’s recent best selling Harry Potter series. Finally a description of Mandrake in modern pharmacological terms leads to some conclusions regarding its actual medicinal and homeopathic usefulness

Samir F Fuleihan - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • mandragora anesthetic of the ancients
    Anesthesia & Analgesia, 2012
    Co-Authors: Elie J Chidiac, Romeo N Kaddoum, Samir F Fuleihan
    Abstract:

    Initial attempts at surgical anesthesia began many centuries ago, with the Plants of antiquity. The mandragora, or Mandrake, was used as a sedative and to induce pain relief for surgical procedures. It has been depicted in tablets and friezes since the 16th century before the common era (BCE) and used for its sedative effects by Hannibal (second century BCE) against his enemies. The Romans used the Mandrake for surgery. The Arabs translated the scientific work of the Ancients and expanded on their knowledge. They developed the Spongia Somnifera, which contained the juice of the Mandrake Plant. After the fall of the Islamic cities of Europe to the Christians, scientific work was translated into Latin and the Spongia Somnifera was used in Europe until the discovery of the use of ether for surgical anesthesia.