I found hops in the 1st century herbal of Dioscorides on p. 27 in Book One: "Aromatics":
http://www.ibidispress.scriptmania.com/box_widget.html
The whole entry is only six sentences. One states: "Used either hot or cold it is good in decoctions made for all those disorders requiring bathing around the vulva." Rembert Dodoens mentions this use too, but it is hardly evidence of any understanding of the estrogenic properties of hops. Maybe Dodoens really was the first to look in the right direction. Dioscorides was still taught at universities in Dodoens' time.
Carl Linnaeus, the 18th century Swedish physician and botanist to whom we owe the current classification system for species, in biology, wrote in his book on kitchen herbs (bottom p.9):
http://huntbot.andrew.cmu.edu/HIBD-PDF/L...en-132.pdf
HUMULUS Lupulus (Humble). Tartarica planta perennis, quam seculis novissimis adhibere hic, & diligentius colere coeptum est. Recentioris aevi folertia radices ejus lapidibus texit, ut sic tum Phalaena Humuli & melleus ros prohibeatur, tum alioquin plantae vigori consulatur. Quem radices tegendi morem ipsius naturae esse congruentem, ex humulo, qui in Westrogothia solummodo ad radicaes rupium, lapidumque fracturas sponte crescit, hauriri posse videtur.
This is only a description of the plant and how to keep it. Since Linnaeus helped botany and medicine become sciences, maybe he just wasn't writing herbal pharmacopeias any more. I'll go back to the book of Rembert Dodoens, and read about fenugreek, goat's rue, flax, and oats. Maybe he already knew about maca too.
http://www.ibidispress.scriptmania.com/box_widget.html
The whole entry is only six sentences. One states: "Used either hot or cold it is good in decoctions made for all those disorders requiring bathing around the vulva." Rembert Dodoens mentions this use too, but it is hardly evidence of any understanding of the estrogenic properties of hops. Maybe Dodoens really was the first to look in the right direction. Dioscorides was still taught at universities in Dodoens' time.
Carl Linnaeus, the 18th century Swedish physician and botanist to whom we owe the current classification system for species, in biology, wrote in his book on kitchen herbs (bottom p.9):
http://huntbot.andrew.cmu.edu/HIBD-PDF/L...en-132.pdf
HUMULUS Lupulus (Humble). Tartarica planta perennis, quam seculis novissimis adhibere hic, & diligentius colere coeptum est. Recentioris aevi folertia radices ejus lapidibus texit, ut sic tum Phalaena Humuli & melleus ros prohibeatur, tum alioquin plantae vigori consulatur. Quem radices tegendi morem ipsius naturae esse congruentem, ex humulo, qui in Westrogothia solummodo ad radicaes rupium, lapidumque fracturas sponte crescit, hauriri posse videtur.
This is only a description of the plant and how to keep it. Since Linnaeus helped botany and medicine become sciences, maybe he just wasn't writing herbal pharmacopeias any more. I'll go back to the book of Rembert Dodoens, and read about fenugreek, goat's rue, flax, and oats. Maybe he already knew about maca too.