# From plant to medicine



## Stormcat (Feb 19, 2016)

It's a well-known fact that most medicines start out as a compound found in a specific plant. You can get painkillers from the opium poppy and antibiotics from mold. (Yes, I know mold isn't a plant) But what I want to know is, what exactly do you _DO_ with the plant to make it medicine?

Basically what my thinking is:

Step 1: Get plant with medical properties
Step 2: Extract the medicinal compound from the plant
Step 3: ?????
Step 4: Cure sick people

Say I've got these "Quenchberries". Initially used as a recreational drug, Scientists have found it contains a compound that can treat schizophrenia. (I'm bad at chemistry so I can't name the compound) How do the scientists turn the Quenchberries into a neat little pill that keeps the voices out of your head?

I've done loads of research on the utter trollop that is "Alternative medicine", it flat-out doesn't work. I wanna know how *REAL* scientists do it!


----------



## Bishop (Feb 19, 2016)

I believe it's done in a multitude of ways, mostly through manipulation of the base chemicals. Certain chemical components can be used to isolate, extract, or react with the natural elements to form new compounds. Chemicals are also treated with certain physical changes, like using a centrifuge to spin them rapidly, treating the chemicals with light, heating or cooling them... the biggest that I'm aware of, though, is mixing. Chemistry is like a giant math problem, and each addition or subtraction of chemical components changes the final result of the equation.

Bear in mind, though, I'm not a chemist by trade, most of this is just knowledge from some personal research that touched lightly on this topic combined with my understanding of high school chemistry. Send an email or letter to a college that has a chemistry department of some kind, or explore your local library for a few books on the topic if this is integral to your story.


----------



## K.S. Crooks (Feb 19, 2016)

Testing of the isolated compound will need to be done. It can be tested only on the specific molecule the medicine will affect; It will then be used on living cells outside of the body to determine how well they interact with cell membranes and other aspects of the cell; Used in animal trials to determine effective dosage, time of effectiveness and if there are any side effects; Human clinical trials on patients with various levels of the condition being treated for the same reason as animal trial, plus some medicines work better at certain levels of illness severity. The new medicine will also need to be checked for its interactions with other medications. Hope this helps.


----------



## Stormcat (Feb 19, 2016)

K.S. Crooks said:


> Testing of the isolated compound will need to be done. It can be tested only on the specific molecule the medicine will affect; It will then be used on living cells outside of the body to determine how well they interact with cell membranes and other aspects of the cell; Used in animal trials to determine effective dosage, time of effectiveness and if there are any side effects; Human clinical trials on patients with various levels of the condition being treated for the same reason as animal trial, plus some medicines work better at certain levels of illness severity. The new medicine will also need to be checked for its interactions with other medications. Hope this helps.



I'm writing this assuming the substance in question has already been tested and cleared for medical usage. I just wanna know how they make the medicine after extracting the working substance.


----------



## Greimour (Feb 20, 2016)

Aiming strictly at your original 4 steps:



> Step 1: Get plant with medical properties
> Step 2: Extract the medicinal compound from the plant
> Step 3: ?????
> Step 4: Cure sick people



Answer: Go to your local pharmacist and ask them how they do it. You can tell them it's a project for school/college, or that you are a novelist and doing research for a book, or whatever else.

As long as the pharmacy isn't especially busy, and the pharmacist isn't a total douche, you can probably find the answer to step three right there.


If I were to just give my reply though, it would be this:


As I am not sure as to the reason you are researching this, or what you plan to do with the information, I am not clear on what exactly you require knowledge in.

Making tablets? Or just refining a medicine?



> I'm writing this assuming the substance in question has already been  tested and cleared for medical usage. I just wanna know how they make  the medicine after extracting the working substance.



It is for a story? What kind of story? What era? Is it factual? Is it an essay?

You said '_alternative medicine doesn't work_', so are you actually testing alternative medicines to prove this? How does it effect your story?


I could do all the research to find out, but I could just end up running down the wrong line of thinking. Do you want to know how they turn the ingredients into a tablet?

***Confused***

I will answer with this:

Definition of Medicine:
_The science or practice of the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease_.
Whether it is FDA approved or not, medicine is medicine. Alternative medicine is still medicine and it does work. Alternative medicine *can and does* help the prevention or treatment of diseases.

The Alternative Medicine used for the treatment or prevention of disease A may not work for disease B, but it was never supposed to.

Secondly, what works for one person will not necessarily work for another. This is the same for 'Real Scientist Methods', as you put it.

Two of my relatives have the exact same problem. Both of them take different medication for it. They were originally on the same medication, but due to sickness and side-effects caused, one was given a different type of medication to deal with it instead.

The same is true of alternative medication. What works for you may not work me, and vice-versa. Trial and error of types may be required.

Quality and obvious signs of relief will also vary. So many variables. I won't go into my opinions further and look at answering your question...


SO:

Depending on your story or the reason, the methods are numerous. What may be considered Alternative Medicine today, might have once been considered state of the art science. These days, we have machines and such that do most of the work. Knowing the how will not necessarily help you. It depends on why you need to know. 

If it is for a story, then I don't see why it can't be avoided/glossed over. Glossing over is very easy to do. Or just a few simple facts will often suffice as an alternative without excessive details.

For refining methods, research on Pharmaceuticals, Apothecary methods, Herbalists, etc.

http://www.greekmedicine.net/therapies/The_Apothecarys_Art.html



**Shrugs**

As 'Step 3' is an extremely large and wide ranged subject, I am not sure what information you need.

Sorry, that's the best I can do.


hope it helps somewhat.


~Kev.


PS. Don't rule out researching the methods they use to make illegal drugs. The methods are sometimes the same. A Medicine is still a drug, after all. 

Opiates, for example, have been used in the Eastern countries for hundreds of years and the methods are many. It is worth looking into.

Sometimes it is a case of burning and inhaling. 
Sometimes it is a method of brewing.

Crushing, Distilling, Brewing, Mixing, Grinding... ...


o.0


----------



## Stormcat (Feb 20, 2016)

The reason that this is mentioned in my story is the evil empire has declared an extremely strict "No Drugs" policy, including medicinal drugs. One of our heroes is a chemistry genius so he takes it upon himself to produce and distribute medicine to those who desperately need it. I figure I might illustrate what chemistry genius is doing, to provide additional detail and to serve as a foil to "Dr. Maruta" who is peddling false hope and sugar pills to the sickly people of the empire.


----------



## UtopiasCult (Feb 21, 2016)

In all actuality, for the way you want to do it, rarely is a single chemical component of a plant isolated. It is generally the parts - flowers, berries, leaves, & roots. Go to your local food store and check some of the "exotic" teas - dandelion root, X & X leaves, such & such fruit. The same way apothecaries and "scientists" would have done it the old way - eat this, you don't keel over but your stomach ache is gone... okay Y's root is good for what upsets your stomach. Do you think those who "invented" alternative medicine - Chinese, naturalists, etc. - were bent over a magnifying glass with a glass beaker going oh, ah, um look at the pretty colors. 

It was all trial and error, nothing more, nothing less. 


Single chemical components are really only for synthetic / artificial drugs. 

Which gets to the point a plant is not a "drug" in the same way Tylenol is. Pharmacy companies are trying to create an artificial drug that copies the pain relief and coping properties of weed/dope. They've succeeded only in causing severe brain damage so far to their test subjects - but they want this drug because pot plants can't be created & billed the same way an artificial drug can be [hence pot is a giant market they want to corner]. 


As for getting labeled a real drug - different stages, animal - small group human - large group human - isolated general public release - wide scale public release. That's how it's done in pharmacy nowadays. The ability to do something like this "underground" will be pretty hard, if not impossible, depending on where your genius ranks in society. When they did prohibition in the US aside from people with moonshine it was mostly the mafia / gangs that were selling liquor because they had the "muscle" and the money to make the authorities by & large look the other way. 


Simplest thing - eat this plant's leaf & those voices will be quiet. Not an entire science lab - bat cave style - hidden beneath the police station. 


ps. If the world is no drugs period, how is this bad doctor selling sugar pills? In a world such as this Dr. Sugar Pill would be treated the same way a snake oil salesman once was, once the people know those pills don't work they'll drag him out of his store by his hair and hang him in the town square.


----------



## Stormcat (Feb 21, 2016)

UtopiasCult said:


> ps. If the world is no drugs period, how is this bad doctor selling sugar pills? In a world such as this Dr. Sugar Pill would be treated the same way a snake oil salesman once was, once the people know those pills don't work they'll drag him out of his store by his hair and hang him in the town square.



But people think they _DO_ work. That's why he hasn't been strung up. He promotes his wares the same way modern snake-oil salesmen do. Say it's "Natural" and "Removes Toxins" but never lists a specific toxin. His army of Loyal customers/gullible suckers swear that Dr. Maruta's products can cure every ailment known to man, much in the same way anti-vaccine people push their "Natural" alternatives. People are still getting sick and dying, but thanks to a clever marketing ploy, they have false hope.

He's also in league with the evil empire, so anyone who brings up a legitimate complaint ("I took this tonic, but the wart is still there! Are you sure this really works?") gets arrested and Dr. Maruta gets a cut of the bounty.

Meanwhile, the good-hearted chemistry genius genuinely wants to see people cured, so his products (sold on the black market) actually work like pharmaceuticals are supposed to.


----------



## Stormcat (Feb 21, 2016)

UtopiasCult said:


> Simplest thing - eat this plant's leaf & those voices will be quiet. Not an entire science lab - bat cave style - hidden beneath the police station.



But there's a catch...

Foxglove contains a poison known as Digitoxin. But it also contains a useful heart medication called Digoxin. (Not the spelling differences). If you just go ahead and chomp down on the leaf, you're going to get equal parts poison and medicine. Rather than poop yourself to death to try and cure a heart murmur, It's would be better to let someone who knows how to keep the good stuff in and the bad stuff out do the work for you. The people need their heart pills, but aren't going to risk pooping themselves to death!

In my "Quenchberries" example, the berries produce powerful hallucinations and can be fatal if consumed in excess. The Anti-psychotic chemical has to be extracted in a similar method to the digitoxin/digoxin.


----------



## Bishop (Feb 22, 2016)

In that case, you can always write it with the negative effects being muted by another addition to the chemical. There's a multitude of medicines which are highly poisonous in their natural state, but combined with another element, compound, chemical, whatever type of matter you want it to be, they become inert in their negative effects and the positive effects remain.


----------



## Blade (Feb 22, 2016)

Here is an article on the proposed use of DNA tagging to simplify the exploration of plant sources for useful drugs.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dna-tags-help-the-hunt-for-drugs/?WT.mc_id=SA_DD_20160222

It describes the perils of the regular search methods and explains how DNA tagging can simplify the whole operation.

Edit: There seems to be some sort of problem with this link. If it does not work directly it will work if C&P'd directly into the address box. :eagerness:


----------

