Kickas.org Forums Ankylosing Spondylitis General Discussion #1 AS Web Support Group AS in History

Bridget's response in my "Interesting to Suppose" thread got me to searching AS in history to see if there was anyone else I could find, outside Phaoronic (is that a word?) circles, other folk with AS.

I found a reference to Apa Bane (or St. Banus) a Coptic Christian monk and saint. My search led me to a link to the Ankylosing Spondylitis International Federation newsletter which had a very good article on Apa Bane, as well as on treatments for AS used in Ancient Egypt.

The Apa Bane article starts on page 5. Continue through to the next article for the ancient treatments.

ASIF News Article

Enjoy!

Many hugs,

Interesting reading... thanks for sharing.

I enjoyed how the Saint may have gotten his name...

Quote:

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It also threw new light on the
origin of his name: “Bane” was, in the dialect of that region,
the word for palm tree. Possibly the saint received this epithet
after entering the monastery because of his kyphotic
appearance which reminded them of a palm tree resisting a
desert storm.

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Sounds like a modern day Kicker "resisting the storm" that is AS.

As for the ancient rememdies... I think I will pass, but this may be where "snake oil" came from

Quote:

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Remedy for easing everything which is stiff:

natron, beans, white oil, hippopotamus oil,
crocodile oil, silurus-fish oil, mullet oil, incense,
sweet myrrh, honey, to be cooked together,
bandage with it every day until he is comfortable”.


“To ease what is stiff and straighten what is
warped:

White oil, moringa, fat of centipede,
hippopotamus oil, lion oil, donkey oil, crocodile
oil, mouse oil, lizard oil, snake oil, ..., to be
cooked together, anoint with it every day until
he is comfortable”.
In the lower register, Figure

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I found this interesting, too.

As for the remedies, the first one mentions 'mullet oil'. This was a tad concerning because I always thought a mullet was a bad haircut and, frankly, the idea of using oil from the head bearing a bad haircut just seemed a bit far-fetched (not to mention gross). I looked into this and it turns out that 'mullet' is a type of fish. So that was a relief.

Then you have in the second remedy, fat from a centipede. OK. Like. Do centipedes even have fat???!!!

One of the other ingredients caught my attention. I'd never heard of 'moringa' so I googled it. It's a tree that grows in Asia, but there is a genus in Africa (Ethiopia). This may be what the recipe refers to. From a nutritional standpoint, here is what the article said:

It was reported that Moringa foliage and fruit pods are rich sources of calcium and iron, and good sources of vitamins A, B, and C (when raw) and of protein (including goodly amounts of the sulfur-containing amino acids, methionine and cystine) (Rams, 1994). Both young and older leaves are edible, though older ones are milder and tender. They can be cooked in soups or boiled. Young pods may be also cooked. Immature seeds are often cooked and eaten as a fresh vegetable, while mature seeds can be dried and roasted. The flowers can be cooked or oven-dried and steeped as tea. Dried leaves can be stored as future soup or sauce supplements. Blossoms are edible; they taste like radish. Browning seeds from mature pods that are mashed and placed in boiling water causes an excellent cooking or lubricating oil to float to the surface. The oil preserves well although become rancid with age. Its roots are used as a flavoring and in poultices; and edible oil can be extracted from its seeds. The green pods and surrounding white material can be removed from larger pods and cooked in various ways.

And this article was very interesting. It actually broke down the medicinal claims and, apparently, researchers at Johns Hopkins are actually looking into some of them. These claims include:

Moringa preparations have been cited in the scientific literature as having antibiotic, antitrypanosomal, hypotensive, antispasmodic, antiulcer, anti-inflammatory, hypo-cholesterolemic, and hypoglycemic activities, as well as having considerable efficacy in water purification by flocculation, sedimentation, antibiosis and even reduction of Schistosome cercariae titer (see Table 1).
Unfortunately, many of these reports of efficacy in human beings are not supported by placebo controlled, randomized clinical trials, nor have they been published in high visibility journals.

With that list of medicinal uses, I can see why it might be included in a remedy for AS.

Moringa Article

Many hugs,

Hey Kat,

I had read some articles on the history of AS and was suprised to find out how many names the disease has had throughout history. One included pictures of Van Gogh's skeleton showing the fused spine and talked about how much he must have suffered. Another was when they changed the name of reactive arthritis because of the research done by the nazi's during the war. It is strange how much we can find these days when we sit down and start researching the past.

Brent

Quote:

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Then you have in the second remedy, fat from a centipede. OK. Like. Do centipedes even have fat???!!!

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I thought exactly the same when I read it... and I hate centipedes, had several in my garage in Green Bay.

Tim

Van Gogh had AS?? I hadn't realized. No wonder he went nuts!!

Thanks for that tidbit.

Many hugs,

I'm not fond of centipedes, but they don't creep me out the way earwigs do.

Many hugs,

Oh Tim, you wimp! I'm heading out right now to find some centipedes so I can dissect out the fat and eat it. If that's what it takes, then I'm willing to do it!

Fat From Centipedes! I plan to patent this remedy and make a fortune off of it!

Karen

Karen - you're sick. Sick, sick SICK! *shudder* nothing creeps me out like centipedes . . . UGH!

well the Van Gogh thing makes a lot of sense . . . I've always thought I saw pain in his paintings. . . . grr I'm trying to describe it and I can't. I've spent a lot of time thinking about how to paint pain, and his swirls make sense. (I'm an art major) And there's the fact that he went nutzoid. That's always a good indicator of uncontrolled chronic pain! (the same can be said for a saint . . . I mean, how did people deal with pain back then? They either went nuts or found God, right? Or both?)

Karen I am with you, just think we could make centipede pops, yummy....And by the way how do you squeeze a hippo to get the oil, or can you just juice em???

Angie