Unseen Art Scene (mirror)

1000 ACRE BOTANICAL GREENHOUSE Uganda - Land of Milk and Honey In the capital of Sudan, Khartoum the White Nile meets with the Blue Nile in dramatic fashion as the poets call it, “the longest kiss in history” but rather than searching for passion and conflict my curiosity took me further down the African map to the origins of Man. If all Mankind came from Africa, then surely we must have all originated from the source of the Nile? The source of the White Nile starts to rise in Lake Victoria near a village called Jinga or some call Ginga in Uganda. It is from these parts of the world that scientists have, for decades, been searching for cures for TB, asthma, HIV and blood related cancers. It is my understanding, that even today, Ugandan mothers take their newly born children down to the banks and plaster the mineral rich mud all over the bodies of their babies. This ritual is performed in order to protect the children from leprosy, tuberculosis and to boost the child’s immune system. Th...

South African Plant 'Fights' Aids Source: BBC Africa | http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/1683259.stm Not just a pretty plant By Carolyn Dempster in Johannesburg A South African indigenous medicinal plant may hold the key to the treatment of millions of poor people living with HIV and Aids, helping them relieve the symptoms of Aids. For the first time in South Africa's medical history, the plant, Sutherlandia Frutescens, sub-species Microphylla, is to undergo clinical trials to assess its immune-boosting properties. We are certainly not making the absurd claim that Sutherlandia is a cure-all or a cure for Aids Dr Nigel Gericke Phyto Nova. The Medical Research Council will conduct the trials early next year and results are expected within three to six months. Anecdotal evidence is already mounting, suggesting that this plant can improve the quality of life of thousands of people both with HIV and full-blown Aids. Sutherlandia Frutescens grows wild in the Western Cape a...

Stevens' Cure: a secret remedy S W B Newsom, MD FRCPath 11 The Footpath, Coton, Cambridge CB3 7PX, UK At the outset of the twentieth century the British Medical Association began a campaign against the sale of ‘patent medicines’. Some of these were innocuous tonics or cold cures such as Beecham's pills, but others claimed to cure the incurable including consumption and cancer. The BMA commissioned a chemist to analyse the medicines and cost the ingredients. His results were published in a BMJ series called ‘Secret remedies’. The first articles appeared in 1907, and were such a success that they were reprinted as a book of the same name (Figure 1) in 1909. In editorials the BMJ subsequently noted with annoyance that press reaction had been mixed. The Daily Telegraph and the Manchester Guardian had accepted advertisements, but the Express, Star, Graphic and News of the World had not (and had refused to review the book). A few weeks later the BMA recorded that, despite this ‘consp...

Unique yam under threat Only two populations of this South African species are known in the wild. “This is the most unique and unusual yam I have come across, and probably the most threatened” Kew yam expert Dr Paul Wilkin Botanist Linda Loffler monitoring Dioscorea strydomiana (Image: John Burrows) One of Kew's most striking new recent discoveries is Dioscorea strydomiana - a critically endangered species from South Africa. There are only two populations of about 200 plants known in the wild. This species is regarded as a cancer cure in the region where it grows, and is consequently under threat from over-collection by medicinal plant collectors who cut pieces off the tubers. Dioscorea strydomiana does not look like a typical yam – it is shrub-like in appearance with a huge, slow-growing, lumpy wooden tuber above the ground measuring up to 1m in height and diameter. The tuber sprouts multiple shoots each spring. For more information: The Indepedent: http://www.independent.co.uk/en...