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because I think that ' s going a bit too far . I think Weiss ' s terminology is better . It elevates the mood . It makes one a little bit more euphoric rather than just being a conventional competitor for antidepressant pharmacology , it ’ s broader than that . And really , the sum of its constituents together provide that benefit , in my opinion , rather than any one single active principle .
Andrew : Indeed . Even with the German phytopharmaceuticals , we ' ve gone through this active principle change , if you like , over the years . We first thought it was one thing , then another . Now it ' s one of the most studied products out there . The Ze 117 formula has been shown not to have any action on CYP liver enzymes . So , therefore , as you say , it can be quite safely used with other antidepressants for a mood-stabilising effect .
Denis : I think there ' s every likelihood that it could be a good companion and certainly , I have known patients who have used it as a means of coming down from stronger and more problematical antidepressant remedies . However , in situations like that , I always prefer that a patient work with their medical manager if they ' re going to add something like St . John ' s Wort to a treatment of coming down from a mainstream antidepressant . I think to do justice to the patient and to the management of his condition , which is usually primarily under the direction of a general practitioner , it ' s wise to have that relationship .
Andrew : Can I ask you about gelsemium ? I was blessed in the days of the prescriptiononly herbs to be able to have access to that herb and use it with great effect , but in your day , it was freely available , wasn ' t it ?
Denis : Yes , we could use in the early days , as I said earlier , a lot of remedies which now are prohibited to persons other than a medical practitioner , and a tincture of gelsemium was a remarkable remedy , wasn ' t it ?
Andrew : Absolutely .
Denis : So for things like trigeminal neuralgia , there are few remedies that could compete with it . We would use that , albeit to be fair we did not use it very frequently because the conditions for which it ' s mainly used tend to be more medically managed and more medically profiled than what we were able to do , but certainly , we had access to it . These days , I think you ' ll find gelsemium is , if not schedule 4 , close to it . I think perhaps a tincture of gelsemium might be schedule 2 , that is , pharmacy dispensing and prescription only , but I stand to be contradicted on that . I do know that one of my graduates from the course , the provisional extension program that I conducted at Newcastle many years ago at a very , very successful pharmacy in Newcastle , was able to dispense tincture gelsemium to those patients of mine for whom I was unable to prescribe or supply it . He helped many patients by stocking that preparation of tincture gelsemium , being as a pharmacist legally entitled to prescribe it , though at a strictly stipulated conservative dose . And that ' s the only thing that I would say about gelsemium . It ' s a potentially very toxic herb which must be used in a very standardised form and in strict adherence to the dosage . It ' s called up in the British Herbal Pharmacopoeia of 1983 with the particular dosage that it ' s to be prescribed in .
Andrew : So we ' ve seen not just restriction of certain herbs , ostensibly because they were poisonous or had some danger attributed to them , like for instance , respiratory depression with gelsemium . But what about the use of ginkgo and bilberry . How has that changed ?
Denis : Well , these herbs were never used in the early days . I go back to what I said earlier . Going back to when I first started practice in the ' 70s , the herbs that were used , as I emphasised , were essentially physio-medical remedies , remedies that had been associated with a style and a practice of herbalism that came as a blend of U . S . herbs and philosophy with U . K . herbs and philosophy . So the remedies were strongly American-based and many European herbs , particularly herbs that grew in the United Kingdom , herbs such as ginkgo and bilberry , were never considered . We probably didn ' t know even anything about them , but down the track , they emerged . And in the case of the ginkgo , as far as I ' m aware , I was the first to give a lecture on this herb , at a Blackmores seminar many years ago . I think this was the first dissertation on the emergence of ginkgo , its possibilities , its uses , and that it was already a popular remedy in Europe . And I said on that occasion that my introduction to it was observing one of my students doing a subject called “ global therapeutics ” - a German student who was using a preparation of ginkgo in a lecture . She told me that it was called Tebonin , which was a proprietary name for it , and it was a German product , and she gave me some information on it , in German . A colleague , Professor Elliott from Newcastle University , had this information translated : Tebonin was a proprietary name for gingko , and gingko was particularly popular in Germany as a means of addressing things like memory , and recall , and focus , and was used a lot in the management of ageing conditions , and as my student also told me , popular among students for improving their performance in tasks like processing information . So I was quite interested in this . And as far as I ' m aware , I was the first to have a preparation of ginkgo manufactured in Australia , both a tableted preparation and also a liquid preparation . And that is a remedy that emerged , if you like , in time from the European tradition , perhaps , accidentally here , but now is part and parcel of professional herbal medicine practice .
A second part of this interview , to be published in a forthcoming issue of JATMS , will cover some other key movements in the history of Australian herbal medicine .
On 26-27 June Denis is holding a 2-day workshop on Australian Herbal Therapeutics . To attend in person or live stream , email admin @ massageschool . com . au or call 0243931200 .
100 | vol27 | no2 | JATMS