Reflections on the `discovery' of the antimalarial qinghao

Author: Hsu, Elisabeth

Source: British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, Volume 61, Number 6, June 2006 , pp. 666-670(5)

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Abstract:

Artemisinin, qinghaosu, was extracted from the traditional Chinese medical drug qinghao (the blue-green herb) in the early 1970s. Its `discovery' can thus be hailed as an achievement of research groups who were paradoxically successful, working as they were at the height of a political mass movement in communist China, known in the West as the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), a period that was marked by chaos, cruelty and enormous suffering, particularly, but by no means only, among the intelligentsia. On the one hand, China's cultural heritage was seen as a hindrance to progress and Mao set out to destroy it, but on the other hand he praised it as a `treasure house', full of gems that, if adjusted to the demands of contemporary society, could be used `for serving the people' (wei renmin fuwu). The success of the `task of combating malaria' (kang nüe ren wu), sometimes known as `task number five hundred and twenty-three', depended crucially on modern scientists who took seriously knowledge that was recorded in a traditional Chinese medical text, Emergency Prescriptions Kept up one's Sleeve by the famous physician Ge Hong (284–363).

Keywords: Malaria; qinghaosu; artemisinin; drug discovery; China; Ge Hong

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2125.2006.02673.x

Publication date: 2006-06-01