Herbal remedies can help to treat neglected tropical diseases
And a scientific approach will identify the best of them
“WHAT DO YOU call traditional medicine that works?” “Medicine.” This old joke contains more than a milligram of truth. When, for example, Tu Youyou, a Chinese chemist, began testing the sweet wormwood used in local herbal remedies as a cure for malaria, her isolation of artemisinin saved millions of lives and earned her the Nobel prize for medicine in 2015.
This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “Treating forgotten killers”
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