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Nepenthe
Nepenthe ( grc, νηπενθές, ) is a fictional medicine for sorrow – a "drug of forgetfulness" mentioned in ancient Greek literature and Greek mythology, depicted as originating in Egypt.. The carnivorous plant genus '' Nepenthes'' is named after the drug nepenthe. In the ''Odyssey'' The word ' first appears in the fourth book of Homer's '' Odyssey'': Analysis Figuratively, nepenthe means "that which chases away sorrow". Literally it means 'not-sorrow' or 'anti-sorrow': , , i.e. "not" ( privative prefix), and , from , , i.e. "grief, sorrow, or mourning".. In the '' Odyssey'', νηπενθές φάρμακον : (i.e. an anti-sorrow drug) is a magical potion given to Helen by Polydamna, the wife of the noble Egyptian Thon; it quells all sorrows with forgetfulness. Pliny the Elder and Dioscorides believed nepenthe to be the medicinal herb borage Borage ( or ; ''Borago officinalis''), also known as starflower, is an annual herb in the flowering plant fa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nepenthes
''Nepenthes'' () is a genus of carnivorous plants, also known as tropical pitcher plants, or monkey cups, in the monotypic family Nepenthaceae. The genus includes about 170 species, and numerous natural and many cultivated hybrids. They are mostly liana-forming plants of the Old World tropics, ranging from South China, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines; westward to Madagascar (two species) and the Seychelles (one); southward to Australia (four) and New Caledonia (one); and northward to India (one) and Sri Lanka (one). The greatest diversity occurs on Borneo, Sumatra, and the Philippines, with many endemic species. Many are plants of hot, humid, lowland areas, but the majority are tropical montane plants, receiving warm days but cool to cold, humid nights year round. A few are considered tropical alpine, with cool days and nights near freezing. The name "monkey cups" refers to the fact that monkeys were once thought to drink rainwater from the pitchers. Description ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carnivorous Plant
Carnivorous plants are plants that derive some or most of their nutrients from trapping and consuming animals or protozoans, typically insects and other arthropods. Carnivorous plants still generate some of their energy from photosynthesis. Carnivorous plants have adapted to grow in places where the soil is thin or poor in nutrients, especially nitrogen, such as acidic bogs. They can be found on all continents except Antarctica, as well as many Pacific islands. In 1875 Charles Darwin published '' Insectivorous Plants'', the first treatise to recognize the significance of carnivory in plants, describing years of painstaking research. True carnivory is believed to have evolved independently at least 12 times in five different orders of flowering plants, and is represented by more than a dozen genera. This classification includes at least 583 species that attract, trap, and kill prey, absorbing the resulting available nutrients. Venus flytrap (''Dionaea muscipula''), p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Potion
A potion () is a liquid "that contains medicine, poison, or something that is supposed to have magic powers.” It derives from the Latin word ''potus'' which referred to a drink or drinking. The term philtre is also used, often specifically for a love potion, a potion that is supposed to create feelings of love or attraction in the one who drinks it. Throughout history there have been several types of potions for a range of purposes. Reasons for taking potions ranged from curing an illness, to securing immortality to trying to induce love. These potions, while often ineffective or poisonous, occasionally had some degree of medicinal success depending on what they sought to fix and the type and amount of ingredients used. Some popular ingredients used in potions across history include Spanish fly, nightshade plants, cannabis and opium. During the 17th to 19th century, it was common in Europe to see peddlers offering potions for ailments ranging from heartbreak to the plagu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greek Literature
Greek literature () dates back from the ancient Greek literature, beginning in 800 BC, to the modern Greek literature of today. Ancient Greek literature was written in an Ancient Greek dialect, literature ranges from the oldest surviving written works until works from approximately the fifth century AD. This time period is divided into the Preclassical, Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman periods. Preclassical Greek literature primarily revolved around myths and include the works of Homer; the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey''. The Classical period saw the dawn of drama and history. Three philosophers are especially notable: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. During the Roman era, significant contributions were made in a variety of subjects, including history, philosophy, and the sciences. Byzantine literature, the literature of the Byzantine Empire, was written in Atticizing, Medieval and early Modern Greek. Chronicles, distinct from historics, arose in this period. Encyclopedias als ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prefix
A prefix is an affix which is placed before the stem of a word. Adding it to the beginning of one word changes it into another word. For example, when the prefix ''un-'' is added to the word ''happy'', it creates the word ''unhappy''. Particularly in the study of languages, a prefix is also called a preformative, because it alters the form of the words to which it is affixed. Prefixes, like other affixes, can be either inflectional, creating a new form of the word with the same basic meaning and same lexical category (but playing a different role in the sentence), or derivational, creating a new word with a new semantic meaning and sometimes also a different lexical category. Prefixes, like all other affixes, are usually bound morphemes. In English, there are no inflectional prefixes; English uses suffixes instead for that purpose. The word ''prefix'' is itself made up of the stem ''fix'' (meaning "attach", in this case), and the prefix ''pre-'' (meaning "before"), both o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mathias Énard
Mathias Énard (born 1972) is a French novelist. He studied Persian and Arabic and spent long periods in the Middle East. He has lived in Barcelona for about fifteen years, interrupted in 2013 by a writing residency in Berlin. He won several awards for ''Zone'', including the Prix du Livre Inter and the Prix Décembre, and won the Prix Goncourt/Le Choix de l’Orient, the , and the Prix du Roman-News for ''Rue des Voleurs'' (''Street of Thieves''). He won the 2015 Prix Goncourt for '' Boussole'' (''Compass''). In 2020 he was Friedrich Dürrenmatt Guest Professor for World Literature at the University of Bern. Awards and honours *2004 Prix des cinq continents de la francophonie for ''La Perfection du tir'' *2004 Prix Edmée-de-La-Rochefoucauld for ''La Perfection du tir'' *2008 Prix Décembre for ''Zone'' *2008 Prix Candide for ''Zone'' *2008 Bourse Thyde-Monnier SGDL for ''Zone'' *2008 Prix Cadmous for ''Zone'' *2009 Prix Initiales for ''Zone'' *2009 Inter Book Prize for '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cannabis Sativa
''Cannabis sativa'' is an annual herbaceous flowering plant indigenous to Eastern Asia, but now of cosmopolitan distribution due to widespread cultivation. It has been cultivated throughout recorded history, used as a source of industrial fiber, seed oil, food, recreation, religious and spiritual moods and medicine. Each part of the plant is harvested differently, depending on the purpose of its use. The species was first classified by Carl Linnaeus in 1753. The word ''sativa'' means "things that are cultivated." Plant physiology The flowers of ''Cannabis sativa'' are unisexual and plants are most often either male or female. It is a short-day flowering plant, with staminate (male) plants usually taller and less robust than pistillate (female or male) plants. The flowers of the female plant are arranged in racemes and can produce hundreds of seeds. Male plants shed their pollen and die several weeks prior to seed ripening on the female plants. Under typical conditions with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Borage
Borage ( or ; ''Borago officinalis''), also known as starflower, is an annual herb in the flowering plant family Boraginaceae. It is native to the Mediterranean region, and has naturalized in many other locales. It grows satisfactorily in gardens in most of Europe, such as Denmark, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, remaining in the garden from year to year by self-seeding. The leaves are edible and the plant is grown in gardens for that purpose in some parts of Europe. The plant is also commercially cultivated for borage seed oil extracted from its seeds. The plant contains pyrrolizidine alkaloids, some of which are hepatotoxic, mutagenic, and carcinogenic (see below under Phytochemistry). Description ''B. officinalis'' grows to a height of , and is bristly or hairy all over the stems and leaves; the leaves are alternate, simple, and long. The flowers are complete, perfect with five narrow, triangular-pointed petals. Flowers are most often blue, although pink f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dioscorides
Pedanius Dioscorides ( grc-gre, Πεδάνιος Διοσκουρίδης, ; 40–90 AD), “the father of pharmacognosy”, was a Greek physician, pharmacologist, botanist, and author of '' De materia medica'' (, On Medical Material) —a 5-volume Greek encyclopedia about herbal medicine and related medicinal substances (a pharmacopeia), that was widely read for more than 1,500 years. For almost two millennia Dioscorides was regarded as the most prominent writer on plants and plant drugs. Life A native of Anazarbus, Cilicia, Asia Minor, Dioscorides likely studied medicine nearby at the school in Tarsus, which had a pharmacological emphasis, and he dedicated his medical books to Laecanius Arius, a medical practitioner there. Though he writes he lived a "soldier's life" or "soldier-like life", his pharmacopeia refers almost solely to plants found in the Greek-speaking eastern Mediterranean, making it likely that he served in campaigns, or travelled in a civilian capacity, less ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pliny The Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic '' Naturalis Historia'' (''Natural History''), which became an editorial model for encyclopedias. He spent most of his spare time studying, writing, and investigating natural and geographic phenomena in the field. His nephew, Pliny the Younger, wrote of him in a letter to the historian Tacitus: Among Pliny's greatest works was the twenty-volume work ''Bella Germaniae'' ("The History of the German Wars"), which is no longer extant. ''Bella Germaniae'', which began where Aufidius Bassus' ''Libri Belli Germanici'' ("The War with the Germans") left off, was used as a source by other prominent Roman historians, including Plutarch, Tacitus and Suetonius. Tacitus—who many scholars agree had never travelled in Germania—used ''Bella Ger ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polydamna
Polydamna (; Ancient Greek: Πολύδαμνα ''Polúdamna'') is an Egyptian figure from Greek mythology. Mythology Mentioned in Homer’s ''Odyssey'',Homer. ''Odyssey'' 4.228 Polydamna was the wife of Thōn (Θῶν, gen: Θῶνος), often known as "Thon the Egyptian", owing to his Egyptian heritage. Polydamna gave Helen, wife of Menelaus, nepenthe (i.e., a drug that has "the power of robbing grief and anger of their sting and banishing all painful memories") and which Helen slipped into the wine that Telemachus and Menelaus were drinking. Note Reference * Homer Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ..., ''The Odyssey'' with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, PH.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antidepressant
Antidepressants are a class of medication used to treat major depressive disorder, anxiety disorders, chronic pain conditions, and to help manage addictions. Common Side effect, side-effects of antidepressants include Xerostomia, dry mouth, weight gain, dizziness, headaches, sexual dysfunction, and emotional blunting. There is a slight increased risk of suicidal thinking and behavior when taken by children, adolescents, and young adults. Antidepressant discontinuation syndrome, Discontinuation syndrome may occur after stopping any antidepressant which resembles recurrent depression. Some research regarding the effectiveness of antidepressants for depression in adults has found benefits, whilst other research has not. Evidence of benefit in children and adolescents is unclear. The twenty-one most commonly prescribed antidepressant medications are more effective than placebo for the short-term (acute) treatments of adults with major depressive disorder. There is debate in the medic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
