The ancient Egyptians practiced medicine with highly professional methods. They had advanced knowledge of anatomy and surgery. Also, they treated a lot of diseases including dental, gynecological, gastrointestinal, and urinary disorders. They could diagnose diabetes and cancer. The used therapeutics extended from different plants to include several animal products and minerals. Some of these plants are still used in the present day. Fortunately, they documented their life details by carving on stone, clay, or papyri. Although a lot of these records have been lost or destroyed, the surviving documents represent a huge source of knowledge in different scientific aspects including medicine. This review article is an attempt to understand some information about traditional medicine in ancient Egypt, we will look closely at some basics, sources of information of Egyptian medicine in addition to common treated diseases and therapeutics in this great civilization.

Black ginseng is a type of processed ginseng that is prepared from white or red ginseng by steaming and drying several times. This process causes extensive changes in types and amounts of secondary metabolites. The chief secondary metabolites in ginseng are ginsenosides (dammarane-type triterpene saponins), which transform into less polar ginsenosides in black ginseng by steaming. In addition, apparent changes happen to other secondary metabolites such as the increase in the contents of phenolic compounds, reducing sugars and acidic polysaccharides in addition to the decrease in concentrations of free amino acids and total polysaccharides. Furthermore, the presence of some Maillard reaction products like maltol was also engaged. These obvious chemical changes were associated with a noticeable superiority for black ginseng over white and red ginseng in most of the comparative biological studies. This review article is an attempt to illustrate different methods of preparation of black ginseng, major chemical changes of saponins and other constituents after steaming as well as the reported biological activities of black ginseng, its major saponins and other metabolites.

Ginseng cultivated and grown naturally under mountainous forest is formally called "Lin-Xia-Shan-Shen" (LXSS) and grown in manual condition is called garden ginseng (GG) according to Chinese pharmacopoeia (2010 edition). Usually the growing condition of LXSS is similar to wild ginseng and mostly used in Chinese folks in ancient times. The antioxidant properties of LXSS with different growing years were evaluated by their inhibitions of thiobarbituric acid-reactive substance (TBA-RS) formation in liver homogenate and 2, 2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH)-radical scavenging activity comparing with those of GG. The inhibitions of different polar extracts (n-butanol and water) of LXSS and GG on TBA-RS formation were also evaluated. The results showed that the antioxidant effects of LXSS were higher than those of GG and the TBARS formation inhibition of LXSS with longer growing years were stronger than those with shorter growing years, while the DPPH-radical scavenging activity of LXSS did not show significant difference with the change of the growing year. The results indicated that the inhibitory effect of TBA-RS formation and the DPPH-radical scavenging of LXSS were correlated with the contents of ginsenosides. In adddition, the starch contents of LXSS and GG were determined by micro-amount method with spectrophotometer. It showed that the starch content in GG was higher than that of LXSS whose starch decreased gradually with the growing year.

Silicosis remains one of the most serious diseases worldwide, with no effective drug for its treatment. Our research results have indicated that arctiin and arctigenin could increase the mitochondrial membrane potential, which in turn reduces the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS), blocks the polarization of macrophages, and inhibits the differentiation of myofibroblasts to reduce oxidative stress, inflammation, and fibrosis. Further, our study revealed that arctiin and arctigenin suppressed the activation of NLRP3 inflammasome through the TLR‐4/Myd88/NF‐κB pathway and the silica‐induced secretion of TNF‐α, IL‐1β, TGF‐β, and α‐SMA. Besides, the silica‐induced increase in the levels of serum ceruloplasmin and HYP was also inhibited. Results of metabolomics indicated that arctiin and arctigenin could regulate the abnormal metabolic pathways associated with the development of silicosis, which involve pantothenate and CoA biosynthesis, cysteine and methionine metabolism, linoleic acid metabolism, and arginine and proline metabolism successively. Furthermore, the analysis of metabolomics, together with network topological analysis in different phases of silicosis, revealed that urine myristic acid, serum 4‐hydroxyproline, and L‐arginine could be regarded as diagnosis biomarkers in the early phase and formation of pulmonary fibrosis in the latter phases of silicosis. Arctiin and arctigenin could downregulate the increased levels of myristic acid in the early phase and serum 4‐hydroxyproline in the latter phase of silicosis. Interestingly, the integration of TLR‐4/NLRP3/TGF‐β signaling and metabolomics verified the importance of macrophage polarization in the silicosis fibrosis process. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study reporting that arctiin and arctigenin both can ameliorate silicosis effectively, and the former is a little stronger than its aglycone arctigenin because of its high oral bioavailability, low toxicity, and multimolecular active metabolites as determined by AdmetSAR and molecular docking analysis.