User talk:H2Ouzeljj

Hello, H2Ouzeljj, and welcome to Wikipedia! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, please see our help pages, and if you can't find what you are looking for there, please feel free to ask me on my talk page or place {{Help me}} on this page and someone will drop by to help. Red Director (talk) 03:09, 7 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Sanguinaria alternative medicine

Hello and welcome to Wikipedia. On my talk page, you said: "Regarding the rejection of edits by H2Ouzeljj to Sanguinaria-Uses-Alternative medicine: entered on 5 August 2019; which were justified cryptically by “1860 quackery; uninformed source”.

- Firstly, all of the added material is factual and supported by a creditable reference.

- Secondly, the full reference article is freely available in pdf format, as noted. Further, the Glasgow Medical Journal can certainly be considered an “informed source” that does not endorse any quackery, even though, since the year of publication cited is 1860 this might unknowingly be viewed with suspicion. In fact, the Glasgow Medical Journal (1822-1956) merged with the Edinburgh Medical Journal (1855-1956) to become the Scottish Medical Journal (hence, 1822-present); please see, Wikipedia page, Scottish Medical Journal. Surely, this journal would not have survived in the medical community for over a century and a half if its foundation was based on quackery.

- As noted, the reference provides an excellent historical perspective of how physicians discussed and formed their opinions on how to best include plants in the treatment of the various ills of their patients. As I am sure you know, many significant advances in medicine have involved the use of plants in one form or another along with an attempt to understand their influence on human health and welfare; and further, efforts were generally made to identify the specific active components within the plants. Yes, quackery existed to a large extent during that time period, but not every discussion about the medicinal use of plants was quackery.

- The “Note” added following the quotation cited from reference 18 provides additional factual information (e.g., timeline, symptoms) pertaining to the circumstances of the deaths, in support of that quote, which is of historical value in understanding just what transpired. Again, the source of this information is the same reference mentioned above.

Overall, it remains my opinion that the submitted edits do provide a significant increase to the value of this section of the page, which would benefit by their inclusion. If you still feel to the contrary, I would be most interested to learn of your specific concerns so that I might better understand the perceived detriment to their inclusion, and perhaps make adjustments accordingly."

Respectfully, I don't think a reference from 1860 is useful for a discussion of alternative medicine, as it obviously had poor scientific resources and that article would not have been given editorial scrutiny for verification. The source lacks WP:V. Your content included the statement: "...wide ranging medicinal uses of Sanguinaria Canadensis is extremely informative" which is your judgment, but the encyclopedia requires strong sources for its medical content, as described in WP:MEDRS which this source does not meet. We can continue the discussion here, if you like. Good luck. --Zefr (talk) 17:23, 12 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You said: Thank you for the additional input regarding your rejection of the submitted edit. Below are a few additional comments concerning my view on the appropriateness of the edits which were submitted.

As written this section, “Alternative Medicine”, is about the historical use of a plant derived substance, citing references from, presumably, oral comments (Ref 17), written descriptions of observations by “a practitioner/physician” (Ref 18), cautions of use Ref 19 (FDA Guidance), observations of toxicity Ref 20, and the legal outcome of a product mislabeling case from the early 1900’s. This content is decidedly historical, that is, how this plant has been used in the past, none of it is slanted toward justifying any therapeutic utility or efficacy. Therefore, presenting references where an interested reader can find additional historical information concerning the rationale for this earlier use does have value, even though most of those uses are now known to have been of questionable therapeutic utility. But these older references permit the reader to explore these areas for themselves.

The title of this section needs to be changed from “Alternative Medicine” to “Traditional Medicine” (q.v. in WP) in order to more accurately capture what is being discussed within the section. This is clear from the first sentence of the section, which notes the history of the ethnobotanical use of Sanguinaria canadensis (bloodroot) by Native Americans. Actually, this first sentence could be expanded to more fully present the range of uses explored for bloodroot by various Native American tribes as well as, subsequently, early European colonists in America – now, as for the efficacy of those uses as determined by modern science, that’s an entirely different discussion.

Regarding the comment “I don't think a reference from 1860 is useful for a discussion …”, which raises the question, but an article from 1869 is useful? See reference 18: that link is to “Henriette’s Herbal Homepage”, on which is posted a scanned copy of the entry for Sanguinaria canadensis (page 465) in the treatise The Physiomedicalist Dispensatory, published in 1869 by W. H. Cook, MD., Cincinnati, Ohio. The content of the added 1860 reference is analogous to that presented in Ref 18, though with a more expansive scope; that is, a compilation of more than just one physician’s personal experience with the use of the substance.

To your comment “…as it obviously had poor scientific resources and that article would not have been given editorial scrutiny for verification.” A considerable number of excellent scientific/technological life changing advances were made prior to the mid-nineteenth century in spite of having “poor scientific resources” by current standards. Furthermore, as commented elsewhere, “Early scientists circulated letters among their peers or read papers in society meetings to report the results of their investigations in hopes of response.” It is reasonable to assume that Dr. Gibbs, or Dr. Cook for that matter, might have shared at least some of their 1860/1869 observations with peers (fellow physicians) and reacted to their input. Peer review as we know it today really didn’t become established until the mid-20th century.

Re your comment that the source lacks WP:V – actually, it is consistent with WP:V, which states “… the information comes from a reliable source.”, which it does, as mentioned earlier. Furthermore, I don’t see that WP:MEDRS really applies here; these are purely historical notations; should noting that a plant was used historically by Native Americans as an emetic be removed because of non-compliance to WP:MEDRS due to the lack of proof that it was actually efficacious? I don’t think so.

Re my comment “is extremely informative”, I agree, it could be taken as a judgment call on my part; however, it could also be read as “there is a lot of worthwhile information on the topic contained herein”.

I remain of the opinion that the additions that I submitted add breadth/value to this section, and are in keeping with any applicable WP protocol. And furthermore, that a change in the name of this section, as noted, is clearly in order.

To keep a discussion continuous, it's best to follow it here by notifying the user, such as by typing H2Ouzeljj. I would say that a reliable source on the Gibb article would be a 21st century assessment of prior research (or opinion, as in Gibb's case) combined with other reliable research, for which there is no such rigorous review, as best as I can see from a literature search. That is why we rely on WP:MEDRS; for more background, see WP:WHYMEDRS and WP:MEDHOW. --Zefr (talk) 23:45, 20 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Citation tool: Citer

When constructing a reference in template for a content entry (background: WP:CIT), you may find useful this tool, Citer. Add a doi, url, pmid or pmc number, then submit to get a completed reference, which can be copied and put into the text. Good luck. --Zefr (talk) 23:48, 20 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]