A panacea , named after the Greek goddess of universal remedy
Panacea
In Greek mythology, Panacea (Greek ''Πανάκεια'', Panakeia), a goddess of universal remedy, was the daughter of Asclepius and Epione. Panacea and her four sisters each performed a facet of Apollo's art:
* Panacea (the goddess of universal ...
, is any supposed remedy that is claimed (for example) to cure all
disease
A disease is a particular abnormal condition that negatively affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism, and that is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medical conditions that a ...
s and
prolong life indefinitely. It was in the past sought by
alchemists
Alchemy (from Arabic: ''al-kīmiyā''; from Ancient Greek: χυμεία, ''khumeía'') is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practiced in China, India, the Muslim world, ...
in connection with the
elixir of life
The elixir of life, also known as elixir of immortality, is a potion that supposedly grants the drinker eternal life and/or eternal youth. This elixir was also said to cure all diseases. Alchemists in various ages and cultures sought the means ...
and the
philosopher's stone
The philosopher's stone or more properly philosophers' stone (Arabic: حجر الفلاسفة, , la, lapis philosophorum), is a mythic alchemical substance capable of turning base metals such as mercury into gold (, from the Greek , "gold", a ...
, a mythical substance that would enable the
transmutation of common
metal
A metal (from Greek μέταλλον ''métallon'', "mine, quarry, metal") is a material that, when freshly prepared, polished, or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electricity and heat relatively well. Metals are typicall ...
s into
gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...
.
Through the 18th and 19th centuries, many "patent medicines" were claimed to be panaceas, and they became very big business.
The term "panacea" is used in a negative way to describe the overuse of any one solution to solve many different problems, especially in medicine. The word has acquired connotations of
snake oil
Snake oil is a term used to describe deceptive marketing, health care fraud, or a scam. Similarly, "snake oil salesman" is a common expression used to describe someone who sells, promotes, or is a general proponent of some valueless or fraudu ...
and
quackery
Quackery, often synonymous with health fraud, is the promotion of fraudulent or ignorant medical practices. A quack is a "fraudulent or ignorant pretender to medical skill" or "a person who pretends, professionally or publicly, to have skill, ...
.
A panacea (or ''panaceum'') is also a literary term to represent any solution to solve all problems related to a particular issue.
Mythology
In Greek mythology, Panacea was one of the daughters of the Greek god of medicine
Asclepius
Asclepius (; grc-gre, Ἀσκληπιός ''Asklēpiós'' ; la, Aesculapius) is a hero and god of medicine in ancient Religion in ancient Greece, Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology. He is the son of Apollo and Coronis (lover of ...
, along with her four sisters, each of whom performed one aspect of health care:
* Panacea (the goddess of the cure)
*
Hygieia
Hygieia is a goddess from Greek, as well as Roman, mythology (also referred to as: Hygiea or Hygeia; ; grc, Ὑγιεία or , la, Hygēa or ). Hygieia is a goddess of health ( el, ὑγίεια – ''hugieia''), cleanliness and hygiene. Her ...
("Hygiene", the goddess of cleanliness, and sanitation)
*
Iaso
Iaso (; el, Ἰασώ, ''Iasō'') or Ieso (; el, Ἰησώ, ''Iēsō'') was the Greek goddess of recuperation from illness. The daughter of Asclepius, she had four sisters: Aceso, Aglæa/Ægle, Hygieia, and Panacea. All five were associated wi ...
(the goddess of recuperation from illness)
*
Aceso
Aceso ( grc, Ἀκεσώ) was the Greek goddess of the healing process.
Family
Aceso was the daughter of Asclepius and Epione, sister of Iaso, Hygieia, Panacea, and Aegle.
Mythology
Unlike her sister Panacea (Cure-All), she represented the ...
(the goddess of the healing process)
*
Aglæa/Ægle (the goddess of beauty and splendor)
According to the mythology, Panacea had an elixir or potion with which she was able to heal any human malady, and her name has become interchangeable with the name of the cure itself.
[
]
History
Ancient medicine
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...
and Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
scholars described various kinds of plants that were called ''panacea'' or ''panaces'', such as '' Opopanax'' sp., ''Centaurea
''Centaurea'' () is a genus of over 700 species of herbaceous thistle-like flowering plants in the family Asteraceae. Members of the genus are found only north of the equator, mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere; the Middle East and surrounding reg ...
'' sp., '' Levisticum officinale'', ''Achillea millefolium
''Achillea millefolium'', commonly known as yarrow () or common yarrow, is a flowering plant in the family Asteraceae. Other common names include old man's pepper, devil's nettle, sanguinary, milfoil, soldier's woundwort, and thousand seal.
The ...
'' and ''Echinophora tenuifolia
''Echinophora'' is a genus of plants belonging to the parsley family, Apiaceae. The thistle-like spininess of the plants is reflected in the genus name, composed of the Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece ...
''.
The Cahuilla
The Cahuilla , also known as ʔívil̃uqaletem or Ivilyuqaletem, are a Native American people of the various tribes of the Cahuilla Nation, living in the inland areas of southern California.[Colorado Desert
California's Colorado Desert is a part of the larger Sonoran Desert. It encompasses approximately , including the heavily irrigated Coachella and Imperial valleys. It is home to many unique flora and fauna.
Geography and geology
The Colorado De ...]
region of California used the red sap of the elephant tree (''Bursera microphylla
''Bursera microphylla'', known by the common name elephant tree in English or 'torote' in Spanish, is a tree in genus ''Bursera''. It grows into a distinctive sculptural form, with a thickened, water-storing or caudiciform trunk. It is found in ...
'') as a panacea.
The Latin genus name of ginseng
Ginseng () is the root of plants in the genus ''Panax'', such as Korean ginseng ('' P. ginseng''), South China ginseng ('' P. notoginseng''), and American ginseng ('' P. quinquefolius''), typically characterized by the presence of ginsenosides an ...
is ''Panax'', (or "panacea") reflecting Linnean understanding that traditional Chinese medicine
Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is an alternative medical practice drawn from traditional medicine in China. It has been described as "fraught with pseudoscience", with the majority of its treatments having no logical mechanism of action ...
used ginseng widely as a cure-all.
In 1581 the Dutch doctor Giles Everard (also known as Gilles Everaerts) published a book "On the Panacea Herb" e herba panaceawhich implied that the newly-discovered tobacco was the long-lost ancient panacea. A work attributed to him appeared in English in 1659, entitled "Panacea; Or The Universal Medicine: Being a Discovery of the Wonderfull Vertues of Tobacco Taken in a Pipe, with Its Operation and Use Both in Physick and Chyrurgery"
The rise of "patent medicines"
The cure-alls became known as "patent medicine
A patent medicine, sometimes called a proprietary medicine, is an over-the-counter (nonprescription) medicine or medicinal preparation that is typically protected and advertised by a trademark and trade name (and sometimes a patent) and claimed ...
s" that grew starting in the late 17th century with increasing marketing. Some found favour with royalty
Royalty may refer to:
* Any individual monarch, such as a king, queen, emperor, empress, etc.
* Royal family, the immediate family of a king or queen regnant, and sometimes his or her extended family
* Royalty payment for use of such things as int ...
and were issued ''letters patent
Letters patent ( la, litterae patentes) ( always in the plural) are a type of legal instrument in the form of a published written order issued by a monarch, president or other head of state, generally granting an office, right, monopoly, titl ...
'' authorising the use of the royal endorsement in advertising.
Eighteenth century England has been popularly referred to as the ''golden age of physic'', due to the widespread availability and consumption of enormous amounts of proprietary medicines - many of which were principally laxatives but with the added claim that they somehow purified the blood and so cured all manner of illness.
The first such preparation that is known to use the term "panacea" for promotion was Panacea of William Swaim, starting in 1820. Defending the use of that term later, he stated that it was often used "in the restricted sense of a remedy for a large class of diseases, and not in its literal and more comprehensive meaning.” He started publishing pamphlets to promote it in 1822, and in 1824 he published a book with the title ''A Treatise on Swaim’s Panacea; Being a Recent Discovery for the Cure of Scrofula or King’s Evil, Mercurial Disease, Deep-Seated Syphilis, Rheumatism, and All Disorders Arising from a Contaminated or Impure State of the Blood''. The Philadelphia Medical Society took particular exception, forming a committee to tackle quack medicines which reported that The Panacea was neither effective nor safe.
Touting these nostrums with implausible claims was one of the first major projects of the advertising industry. An early pioneer in the use of advertising
Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a ...
to promote patent medicine was New York businessman Benjamin Brandreth
Benjamin Brandreth (June 23, 1809 – February 18, 1880) was a pioneer in the early use of mass advertising to build consumer awareness of his product, a purgative that allegedly cured many ills by purging toxins out of the blood. He became a suc ...
, whose "Vegetable Universal Pill" eventually became one of the best-selling patent medicines in the United States. For fifty years Brandreth’s name was a household word in the United States; the Brandreth pills were a purgative that allegedly cured many ills by purging toxins out of the blood, which he claimed was the cause of all maladies. In the absence of proof, Brandreth justified this claim by quoting scripture : "The life of the flesh is in the blood." An advertisement from 1865 claimed that "By their use acute disease of every kind is cured. Perseverance will cure most chronic cases." They became so well known they received mention in Herman Melville's classic novel ''Moby-Dick
''Moby-Dick; or, The Whale'' is an 1851 novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book is the sailor Ishmael (Moby-Dick), Ishmael's narrative of the obsessive quest of Captain Ahab, Ahab, captain of the whaler, whaling ship ''Pequod (Moby- ...
''.
Similarly, James Morison was a British quack-physician who sold "Hygeian Vegetable Universal Medicine", which were advertised as "A cure for all curable ills". Morrison established his own medical school, The British College of Health, which trained agents known as Hygeists to sell the pills. However, satirists were brutal in their attacks on the business and its gullible clients, with caricatures even showing people re-growing severed limbs.
Many other patent medicines made claims to cure implausibly wide-ranging conditions.
An early nineteenth century advertisement for Daffy's Elixir
Daffy's Elixir (also sometimes known as Daffey's Elixir or Daffye's Elixir) is a name that has been used by several patent medicines over the years. It was originally designed for diseases of the stomach, but was later marketed as a universal cur ...
said it was used for the following ailments: The Stone in Babies and Children; Convulsion
A convulsion is a medical condition where the body muscles contract and relax rapidly and repeatedly, resulting in uncontrolled shaking. Because epileptic seizures typically include convulsions, the term ''convulsion'' is sometimes used as a s ...
fits
Flexible Image Transport System (FITS) is an open standard defining a digital file format useful for storage, transmission and processing of data: formatted as multi-dimensional arrays (for example a 2D image), or tables. FITS is the most com ...
; Consumption
Consumption may refer to:
*Resource consumption
*Tuberculosis, an infectious disease, historically
* Consumption (ecology), receipt of energy by consuming other organisms
* Consumption (economics), the purchasing of newly produced goods for curren ...
and Bad Digestives; Agues; Piles; Surfeits; Fits of the Mother and Vapours from the Spleen
The spleen is an organ found in almost all vertebrates. Similar in structure to a large lymph node, it acts primarily as a blood filter. The word spleen comes . ; Green Sickness
Hypochromic anemia is a generic term for any type of anemia in which the red blood cells are paler than normal. (''Hypo''- refers to ''less'', and ''chromic'' means ''colour''.) A normal red blood cell has a biconcave disk shape and will have an a ...
; Children's Distempers, whether the Worms Worms may refer to:
*Worm, an invertebrate animal with a tube-like body and no limbs
Places
*Worms, Germany, a city
**Worms (electoral district)
*Worms, Nebraska, U.S.
*Worms im Veltlintal, the German name for Bormio, Italy
Arts and entertainme ...
, Rickets
Rickets is a condition that results in weak or soft bones in children, and is caused by either dietary deficiency or genetic causes. Symptoms include bowed legs, stunted growth, bone pain, large forehead, and trouble sleeping. Complications may ...
, Stones
In geology, rock (or stone) is any naturally occurring solid mass or aggregate of minerals or mineraloid matter. It is categorized by the minerals included, its chemical composition, and the way in which it is formed. Rocks form the Earth's o ...
, Convulsions, Gripes, King's Evil
The disease mycobacterial cervical lymphadenitis, also known as scrofula and historically as king's evil, involves a lymphadenitis of the cervical lymph nodes associated with tuberculosis as well as nontuberculous (atypical) mycobacteria.
Disea ...
, Joint Evil or any other disorder proceeding from Wind
Wind is the natural movement of air or other gases relative to a planet's surface. Winds occur on a range of scales, from thunderstorm flows lasting tens of minutes, to local breezes generated by heating of land surfaces and lasting a few hou ...
or Crudities; Gout
Gout ( ) is a form of inflammatory arthritis characterized by recurrent attacks of a red, tender, hot and swollen joint, caused by deposition of monosodium urate monohydrate crystals. Pain typically comes on rapidly, reaching maximal intensit ...
and Rheumatism
Rheumatism or rheumatic disorders are conditions causing chronic, often intermittent pain affecting the joints or connective tissue. Rheumatism does not designate any specific disorder, but covers at least 200 different conditions, including art ...
; Stone or Gravel in the Kidnies; Cholic and Griping of the Bowels; the Phthisic; Dropsy
Edema, also spelled oedema, and also known as fluid retention, dropsy, hydropsy and swelling, is the build-up of fluid in the body's tissue. Most commonly, the legs or arms are affected. Symptoms may include skin which feels tight, the area ma ...
and Scurvy
Scurvy is a disease resulting from a lack of vitamin C (ascorbic acid). Early symptoms of deficiency include weakness, feeling tired and sore arms and legs. Without treatment, decreased red blood cells, gum disease, changes to hair, and bleeding ...
.
In 1891, Dr. John Collis Browne's Chlorodyne
Chlorodyne was one of the best known patent medicines sold in the British Isles. It was invented in the 19th century by a Dr. John Collis Browne, a doctor in the British Indian Army; its original purpose was in the treatment of cholera. Browne ...
was advertised as a treatment for coughs, consumption, bronchitis, asthma, diphtheria, fever, croup, ague, diarrhoea, cholera, dysentery, epilepsy, hysteria, palpatation, spasms, neuralgia, rheumatism, gout, cancer, toothache, meningitis, etc.
Even Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton in Atlanta ...
was marketed as a patent medicine in its early days: it was claimed to cure many diseases, including morphine addiction, indigestion, nerve disorders, headaches, and impotence.
The conventional medical profession pushed back against the claims of panaceas. In 1828, the New York state medical society adopted one of America's first medical ethics codes, which stated that patent medicines were not to be tolerated. From about the 1830s, one of the principal target was Morison's "Hygeian Vegetable Universal Medicine". Morison retaliated by appealing to what is now known as the logical fallacy of the "appeal to nature
An appeal to nature is an argument or rhetorical tactic in which it is proposed that "a thing is good ''because'' it is 'natural', or bad ''because'' it is 'unnatural. It is generally considered to be a bad argument because the implicit (unstate ...
", criticizing the medical reliance on chemicals in contrast to his remedies made from natural vegetables.
In contrast to their advertised safety, Morison’s pills could be dangerous, and fatal if taken in large enough quantities. In 1836, John MacKenzie, aged 32, who was diagnosed with rheumatism in the knee, died after one of Morison’s agents gave him 1,000 pills over 20 days; that agent was indicted and found guilty of manslaughter. The following year, excessive consumption of Morison’s pills was found to cause 12 deaths following investigations in York. Morison himself evaded punishment as the charges were against his agents. After Morrison dies in 1840 and his sons took over, they expanded the product range. The pills were finally withdrawn from sale in the 1920s.
The founding of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain in 1841 marked another step away from patent medicines and panaceas.
Claims and restrictions
Legislation covering claims of cure-all preparations varies by jurisdiction.
In 1906, the USA passed of the first Pure Food and Drug Act
The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, also known as Dr. Wiley's Law, was the first of a series of significant consumer protection laws which was enacted by Congress in the 20th century and led to the creation of the Food and Drug Administration. ...
. This statute did not ban the alcohol, narcotics, and stimulants in the medicines; it required them to be labelled as such, and curbed some of the more misleading, overstated, or fraudulent claims that appeared on the labels. In 1936 the statute was revised to ban them, and the United States entered a long period of ever more drastic reductions in the medications available unmediated by physician
A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...
s and prescriptions. Morris Fishbein
Morris Fishbein Doctor of Medicine, M.D. (July 22, 1889 – September 27, 1976) was an American physician and editor of the ''Journal of the American Medical Association'' (''JAMA'') from 1924 to 1950.
Ira Rutkow's ''Seeking the Cure: A Hist ...
, editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association
''The Journal of the American Medical Association'' (''JAMA'') is a peer-reviewed medical journal published 48 times a year by the American Medical Association. It publishes original research, reviews, and editorials covering all aspects of bio ...
, who was active in the first half of the 20th century, based much of his career on exposing quacks and driving them out of business.
In the USA, there have been cases of products that claimed to cure many, many diseases. Seasilver
Seasilver is the trademarked name of a commercial dietary supplement produced and sold by the companies Seasilver USA, Inc. and Americaloe, Inc.
The product was promoted with the false claim that it could "cure 650 diseases", resulting in the pro ...
, a commercial dietary supplement
A dietary supplement is a manufactured product intended to supplement one's diet by taking a pill, capsule, tablet, powder, or liquid. A supplement can provide nutrients either extracted from food sources or that are synthetic in order ...
that was sold via multi-level marketing plan, was promoted with the false claim that it could "cure 650 diseases", resulting in the prosecution and fining of the owners.
See also
* List of topics characterized as pseudoscience
This is a list of topics that have, either currently or in the past, been characterized as pseudoscience by academics or researchers. Detailed discussion of these topics may be found on their main pages. These characterizations were made in the ...
* Miasma (Greek mythology)
* Moly (herb)
Moly (Ancient Greek, Greek: , ) is a magical herb mentioned in book 10 of Homer's ''Odyssey''.
In Greek myth
In Homer, Homer's ''Odyssey'', Hermes gave
his herb to Odysseus to protect him from Circe's poison and magic when he went to her palace ...
References
External links
*
*There are a total of 341 entries detailing Native American Panacea in the Native American Ethnobotany Database. All Panacea from Native Americans can be seen in this link here: http://naeb.brit.org/uses/search/filtered/?string=panacea&tribe=&use_category=1
{{DEFAULTSORT:Panacea (Medicine)
Alchemical substances
Mythological medicines and drugs