Historical accounts state various tribes on the Eastern Shore have successfully used Sarracenia purpurea, a carnivorous plant, to cure smallpox victims, according to the PLoS One study. In the 19th century, botanical preparations made of the carnivorous plant Sarracenia purpurea were touted as successful treatments for smallpox infections. Historical sources indicate that during 1800, when smallpox was still a major threat, Micmac Native Americans in Nova Scotia treated smallpox with a botanical concoction of the pitcher plant. [Sources: 0, 1, 4]
In the late 1800s, the Micmac Indians of Nova Scotia claimed that there was a botanical-based treatment for smallpox. An ancient herbalism treatment for smallpox, thought to be used by Native Americans during the late 1800s, has been rediscovered and found to be capable of killing poxviruses. An herb used for treating smallpox in the 19th century, Smallpox has been found to stop the virus from replicating in vitro. A study of lab-grown cells suggests a plant extract used to treat smallpox in 19th-century Native America smallpox might help to lessen the effects of Orthopox virus infections, according to the PLoS One study. [Sources: 0, 1, 4]
Now, Geoffrey Langland of Arizona State University in Tempe, U.S., and colleagues conducted in vitro experiments using the herbal extract and found it suppressed the poxviruses’ replication. The work describes characterizing the antipoxvirus activities associated with a botanical preparation against vaccinia virus, monkeypox virus, and variola virus, a smallpox-causing agent. As described in more detail herein, antipoxvirus activity associated with extracts from S. purpurea was found not to be restricted to a specific genus of carnivorous botanicals. A range of other botanical genera was tested to preserve antiviral activity associated with S. purpurea. [Sources: 0, 6, 8]
Scientists used Rabbit kidney cell cultures to test the effects of S. purpurea extracts on vaccinia virus (VACV), monkeypox virus (MPXV), and variola virus (VARV), as well as a few other viruses. The team made Pitcher plant extracts and found it was very effective in suppressing viral replication in rabbit kidney cells. The scientists found that the extract suppressed the poxvirus replication at the level of early viral transcription. They determined the plants’ effects were at least partly specific for poxviruses, in contrast with other, unrelated viruses tested. [Sources: 1, 4]
It has been shown that plant extracts are active not only against smallpox, but also against other poxviruses, papovavirus SV-40, and a variety of herpes viruses including papillomaviruses and Epstein-Barr-related carcinomas, generally inhibiting viral replication at an early transcriptional level (Moore and Langland, 2018). U.S. Army surgeons and noted botanist Charles F. Millspaugh detailed Native American uses of poultices and infusions made from Sarracenia purpurea, the flesh-eating plant known as the Purple Pitcher Plant. In 1892, Charles Millspaugh described Native Americans of Eastern North America using Sarracenia purpurea, a carnivorous plant, as a poultice for smallpox, which provided the greatest known cure to smallpox. The emergence of vaccination brought forward a botanical remedy, but Sarracenia purpureas antiviral properties were subsequently demonstrated in vitro (Arndt et al., 2012). [Sources: 0, 3, 9]
Other drugs are being developed for smallpox, but Pitcher plants are the only known therapies to attack the virus in that stage of its replication cycle. Antivirals being developed to use in patients with smallpox could be effective.
These could also prove beneficial now in the prevention and control of monkeypox. Here, I present a non-systematic, botanically-based overview of some of the most devastating pandemics that mankind has faced, focusing especially on plant-based treatments. Here I am providing a non-systematic review, with a historical-botanical focus, of some of the most significant pandemics humanity has faced, and in some cases is still facing, and how some plants or plant-based remedies were used, and can still be used, to treat those diseases, perhaps including COVID19. [Sources: 5, 9]
I hope that readers will find this review helpful to invoke the essential role plants have played, and continue to play, in human health. In a historic review published in the Frontiers in Plant Science, Spanish researcher Sonya Garcia from Institut Botanic de Barcelona reviewed the evidence for plant-based remedies during past pandemics. Garcia said plant-based remedies were turned to when the diseases organisms developed a resistance to synthetic therapies. [Sources: 3, 9]
Fresh plant materials can be used for making a liquid plant extract. In various embodiments, fresh plant material or a dried extract and previously extracted powder from Eleutherococcus senticosus (Siberian ginseng), Eleutherococcus senticosus can be used for the preparation of a botanical extract. In various embodiments, such as therapeutic formulations which can be used for external applications to treat infections caused by herpes virus families, a botanical extract formulation can include 50% Sarracenia purpurea extract, 12% Melissa officinalis, 20% Lavandula officinalis, 5% Glycyrrhiza glabra, 8% Eleutherococcus senticosus and 5% Hypericum perforatum. In various embodiments, tissues of the plant from the genus and/or species identified in the disclosure are used to prepare a botanical extract. [Sources: 8]
Any suitable in vitro test which can be used to assess a virus’s ability to infect, replicate, or otherwise exhibit aspects of the virus disease process can be used to standardize the botanical extracts according to the present disclosure. [Sources: 8]
This is not prophylactic, nor does it prevent infection with Pox disease, but it would reduce the effects of infection, and/or treat the infection, by applying Sarracenia purpurea on the pustules, which would kill the virus. [Sources: 1]
Sources:
[0]: https://www.tumgir.com/tag/Sarracenia%20purpurea
[5]: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/monkeypox
[7]: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/22371-monkeypox
[8]: https://patents.justia.com/patent/20210275620
[9]: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls.2020.571042/full
