The report on the siddha drug, Nilavembu kudineer , showing antiviral activity and immunomodulation was interesting (‘Science & Technology’ page, “ Nilavembu kudineer kills dengue virus, protects from chikungunya”, February 3). If anything, it reinforces a fact of singular importance in medical research — the urgent concerns of clinical care and the ‘trial and error’ experiences that these concerns beget that have been the source of several great medical discoveries. Ancient medical texts can serve as a rich repertoire of such researchable, if not employable, clinical experiences. The Nobel-winning discovery of the anti-malarial drug, artemisinin, had as its source a 2,000- year-old clinical experience documented in a treatise of traditional Chinese medicine. It is heartening to see that our researchers too are working on indigenous drugs to verify and establish their efficacy.
Dr. G.L. Krishna,
Bengaluru