The origin of the medicinal properties in the textbooks of Thai traditional medicine: Cinnamon Herb Case Study

Abstract

Thai traditional medicine is a professional practice based on knowledge or textbooks that have been passed on and developed from generation to generation. This raised the question of how the medicinal properties from various Thai medical textbooks came about. Therefore, the origin of medicinal properties had been studied and shown a case study of the medicinal properties of cinnamon, in order for users of textbooks on the medicinal properties to understand the origin of the medicinal and use it properly. By collecting evidence from stone inscriptions, archives, and textbooks related to medicinal properties since Textbook of the medicinal properties of Prince Wongsathiratsanit, who classified the medicinal properties by parts of herbs for the first time until the documents published in 2000, and content analysis was conducted. For a case study of the medicinal properties of cinnamon; recorded, the property data from the collected documents, classified into different properties and then performed the frequency distribution classified by properties and the source documents with the spreadsheet program. The results showed that the medicinal properties of Thai herbs originated from the experiment of Prince Wongsatiratsanit and followed by memoirs from local healers and then copied and added more successively. So was the case with cinnamon, and modern pharmacological properties of cinnamon, giving Thai traditional medicine an opportunity to further explain and link with their existing properties.