Showing posts with label History. Show all posts
Showing posts with label History. Show all posts

Roman-era shipwreck reveals ancient medical secrets

| Sunday, July 24, 2011 | 0 comments |
A first-aid kit found on a 2,000-year-old shipwreck has provided a remarkable insight into the medicines concocted by ancient physicians to cure sailors of ailments.

by Nick Squires

A wooden chest discovered on board the vessel contained pills made of ground-up vegetables, herbs and plants such as celery, onions, carrots, cabbage, alfalfa and chestnuts – all ingredients referred to in classical medical texts.

The tablets, which were so well sealed that they miraculously survived being under water for more than two millennia, also contain extracts of parsley, nasturtium, radish, yarrow and hibiscus.

They were found in 136 tin-lined wooden vials on a 50ft-long trading ship which was wrecked around 130 BC off the coast of Tuscany. Scientists believe they would have been used to treat gastrointestinal complaints suffered by sailors such as dysentery and diarrhoea.

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Is it safe to send your child to school?

| Tuesday, September 7, 2010 | 0 comments |

By Wes Vernon

Before Communist Howard Zinn died in January, he was actively spearheading an effort to inject his lying version of American history into the innocent heads of little tots almost as soon as they are able to talk.

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