Disclosing the composition of unknown historical drug formulations: an emblematic case from the Spezieria of St. Maria d
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RESEARCH PAPER
Disclosing the composition of unknown historical drug formulations: an emblematic case from the Spezieria of St. Maria della Scala in Rome Giulia Carolina Lodi 1 & Giuseppe Borsato 2 & Maria Luisa Vázquez de Ágredos Pascual 3 & Francesca Caterina Izzo 1 Received: 2 March 2020 / Revised: 16 July 2020 / Accepted: 18 August 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract This paper reports a pioneering study of an unknown historical drug formulation preserved in the Spezieria of Santa Maria della Scala in Rome, founded at the end of the seventeenth century by the Discalced Carmelites. Due to limited literature related to pharmaceutical remedies and drugs of the Early Modern Era (between the XV and XVIII centuries) and the complexity in their formulations, the study of these drugs represents a great challenge. The untargeted nature of the selected drug required a multianalytical approach with complementary techniques to formulate a compositional hypothesis: FT-IR spectroscopy, gas chromatography-associated/mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) were successfully employed to identify different organic compounds. Systematic archaeobotanical research was performed as well, allowing us to acquire data related to the possible genus of plants from which these natural compounds derive and their geographical origin. The unknown drug formulation turned out to be a complex mixture used as an ointment with an anti-inflammatory purpose. It mainly contains a mixture of Venetian turpentine; a Pine resin (colophony) from the Pinaceae family; an exudate of a plant from South America, whose identified components are triterpenic compounds such as alpha- and beta-amyrins, betulin and lupeol; and saturated fatty acids which act as carriers and/or to reduce the viscosity of abovementioned exudates and resins. The study of historical drugs is important not only in order to know the practices handed down by the speziali in the past but also to reconstruct historical recipes, which can inspire new dermatological, cosmetic, hygienic and current healing products.
Keywords Historical drugs . FT-IR . GC-MS . NMR . Venice turpentine . Pine resin . Betulin . Amyrin . Santa Maria della Scala
Introduction
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-020-02893-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Francesca Caterina Izzo [email protected] 1
Sciences and Technologies for the Conservation of Cultural Heritage, Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Via Torino 155/b, 30174 Venice, Italy
2
Department of Molecular Sciences and Nanosystems, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Via Torino 155/b, 30174 Mestre, Venice, Italy
3
Department of Art History, Faculty of History and Geography, University of Valencia, Av. Blasco Ibañez 28, 46010 Valencia, Spain
For over 13,700 years, humans have used medicinal plants to treat diseases [1]. M
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