Institute for the Preservation of Medical Traditions

10/05/2026

Gabon, home to the medicinal plant behind , wants a fairer share of its global boom.

Iboga, 𝙏𝙖𝙗𝙚𝙧𝙣𝙖𝙣𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙞𝙗𝙤𝙜𝙖, is a plant native to the wet forests of West-Central Africa. And in Gabon, its root bark plays a central role in several Bwiti (or Bwété) traditions. It is also the original source of ibogaine, an alkaloid extracted from the root, now drawing intense interest as an experimental treatment for addiction and other mental-health conditions.

LIBREVILLE — In the traditional-medicine corner of La Peyrie Market in Libreville, iboga comes in a repurposed clear rum bottle packed to the neck with pale bark powder, set among tinctures in old plastic bottles. Two men appeared within a minute on this day in July, and once they heard they were ...

09/29/2026

Mark your calendar!📌
The 26th International Congress of the International Society for Ethnopharmacology (ISE) and the 14th International Congress of the Society for Ethnopharmacology, India (ISE-Society for Ethnopharmacology - SFE), will be held from 27–29 November 2027 at Jadavpur University, , India.

CONGRESS THEME:
Translating Traditional Therapies—
Explore, Educate and Empower

https://www.sfeise2027.com/

09/27/2026

This year too we have organized a hands-on class for the students of UIC Honors College, with the help of the Special Collections Librarian, at the Library of the Health Sciences-Chicago UIC.
A unique opportunity for them to see some Renaissance herbals, pharmacopoeias, as well as facsimile replicas of manuscripts preserved in prestigious European libraries. The presentation followed a chronological, historical order from Antiquity to the 18th century. 🌿🌱🍃 📚
UIC Retzky College of Pharmacy
University of Illinois Chicago
UIC Honors College

09/25/2026

𝐀𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐓𝐨𝐮𝐰𝐚𝐢𝐝𝐞 and 𝐄𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐮𝐞𝐥𝐚 𝐀𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐢 are again in Chicago to give classes on history of and 𝑯𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒚 𝒐𝒇 𝑴𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒂 𝑴𝒆𝒅𝒊𝒄𝒂, as part of the course entitled "𝑷𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒕 𝑴𝒆𝒅𝒊𝒄𝒊𝒏𝒆 𝒇𝒓𝒐𝒎 𝑹𝒂𝒊𝒏𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝑴𝒆𝒕𝒓𝒐𝒑𝒐𝒍𝒊𝒔 – 𝑨 𝑳𝒆𝒈𝒂𝒄𝒚 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑭𝒖𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒆", organized by the ECoG group for the students of the Uic-Honors College, at the University of Illinois Chicago. 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙀𝙩𝙝𝙣𝙤𝙗𝙤𝙩𝙖𝙣𝙮 𝘾𝙤𝙡𝙡𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝙂𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙥 (𝙀𝘾𝙤𝙂), within the Pharmacognosy Institute, is an integral part of research and education at the UIC Retzky College of Pharmacy. The Pharmacognosy Graduate Program has long attracted students interested in medical ethnobotany with research projects around the globe, including locally in the Chicago area.
More details about the course: https://pharmacognosy.pharmacy.uic.edu/pharmacognosy/ecog/ecog-seminar/ -medicine-from-rainforest-to-metropolis-a-legacy-for-the-future

09/22/2026

Forthcoming free webinar offered by the Centre for the Study of Medicine and the Body in the Renaissance - CSMBR:
The Cold Female Body in Oliva Sabuco
Motherhood, Semen, and Milk.
Jil Muller, Universität Paderborn
7 October 2026 - 5 pm (CEST)
Did an early modern woman rethink the female body? Jil Muller shows how Oliva Sabuco (1562-1646) reinterpreted women's role in generation and breastfeeding by reworking the inherited traditions of Galenic, Hippocratic, and Avicennian medicine. In this lecture, she argues that Sabuco transformed the notion of the "cold" female body from a sign of weakness into a necessary condition of fertility and maternal nurture, while remaining firmly within the framework of early modern natural philosophy.
https://form.jotform.com/261954537871368

09/22/2026

What is the of our past?

In contrast to sight, which is traditionally linked to reason, olfactory knowledge has long been dismissed and left largely unprotected. In recent years, however, researchers have been working to document and preserve this fragile heritage – and, in some cases, to resurrect vanished scents.
Alchemies of Scent!

Smell is an overlooked form of cultural heritage, but researchers are developing ways to document, preserve and even resurrect the scents that connect people and places to the past.

Read more in out article “What is the scent of our past?”: https://courier.unesco.org/en/articles/what-scent-our-past

09/15/2026

AI can read old handwriting. But can it tell when a reading is evidence and when it is only probable? This new post looks at what happens when historical manuscripts meet HTR and multimodal AI.
www.archivitaly.it/ai-palaeography-historical-handwriting

09/14/2026

A brief history of the hangover and its cures – from cabbages to cloves and the lungs of a goat 😳

Humans have spent thousands of years searching for a hangover cure – yet the ultimate price of heavy drinking remains unchanged.

09/14/2026

Until January 6, 2027, Palazzo Madama Torino, Italy, will host an exhibition dedicated to the history and culture of gardens in the 18th century. Housed in the Guardaroba and the Piccolo Gabinetto Cinese, the exhibition “𝙂𝙞𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙞𝙣𝙞. 𝙇’𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙚 𝙙𝙞 𝙫𝙞𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙡𝙖 𝙣𝙖𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙖 𝙣𝙚𝙡 𝙎𝙚𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙘𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙤” (𝙂𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙚𝙣𝙨. 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝘼𝙧𝙩 𝙤𝙛 𝙀𝙭𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙉𝙖𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙚 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙀𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙚𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙝 𝘾𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙮) curated by Clelia Arnaldi di Balme, offers a journey through a selection of drawings, botanical illustrations, and engravings that trace the evolution of the European garden and humanity’s relationship with nature during the Age of Enlightenment.
https://www.palazzomadamatorino.it/it/evento/giardini-larte-di-vivere-la-natura-nel-settecento/

09/11/2026

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University are combining their herbaria to create the third-largest university plant collection in the United States. The combined collection will feature roughly 1.7 million plant specimens. It becomes the largest in the Southeast and third-largest university herbarium nationwide, behind only Harvard and UC Berkeley.
The agreement rescues Duke's century-old collection two years after Duke announced plans to close its herbarium due to aging facilities.👏

https://www.science.org/content/article/massive-herbarium-merger-rescues-century-old-plant-collection

The new plant collection will hold over 1.7 million specimens, making it the third largest university herbarium in the country.