The people, plants and histories that bring the concept to life.
Mucuna pruriens, a subtropical bean also known as velvet bean, is known to be used in the Indian millennia old health system of Ayurveda as an important medicine for the treatment of symptoms related to a disease we now know as Parkinson's. This disease was named after James Parkinson, who first described the symptoms of the disease in 19th century London, when the city, its air and its rivers were heavily contaminated as a result of industrial - a.o. chemical - waste that came with it. Its symptoms were first described by a London surgeon and apothecary named James Parkinson. Levodopa, discovered around 1960 as an important treatment for Parkinson's, and the standard medicine up until today, is naturally available in Mucuna pruriens. The natural form is known to have several benefits over the synthetic levodopa.
This story is still being finished — more soon. In the meantime, the full background is set out in the Medicinal Agroecology book chapter and reviewed in the LinkedIn newsletter.
Coming soon.