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328 Current Topics in Menopause Barry G. Wren
to form menstrual blood. It was the accepted belief that because of lack of
nourishment, women became drier and colder [1, 2] but there is no intimation in
historical records that as a result of becoming amenorrhoeic they also developed
flushes, sweats, insomnia, psychological dysfunction or were rendered infertile.
The early physicians provided only vague and ambiguous descriptions of the
symptoms which post-menopausal women may have experienced. The account,
by these early Greek scholars, of coldness and dryness in older women, is in
contrast to the modern portrayal of the menopause phase as being associated with
flushes, sweats, insomnia and emotional instability [3].
During the two to three thousand years, extending from recorded historical times to
the twentieth century, a variety of therapy regimens were prescribed to treat some of
the individual symptoms which women had been experiencing, with varying degrees
of success. Chamomile, sage leaf, tribulus and hypericum perforatum (St. John's
wort) were just some of the plants used extensively in Roman times while Chinese
and Indian herbalists mixed various combinations of herbs, mushrooms and plant
roots to treat the “instability” experienced by older females.
The first pharmacopaea, (the Shennong Bencao Jing) was written during the Han
Dynasty and described a variety of plant and fungal extracts to maintain and
improve the body equilibrium. Lingzhi was the fungi of choice for treating most
women with what could be considered menopausal symptoms. Even today, these
extracts are often the preferred treatment regimens by a very large number of
women, not only in Asian countries but also in Western society. Other cultures
(including American Indians who used the boiled extract of Black Cohosh to
reduce fever, sweats and flushes) have employed a variety of herbs and plant
extracts to relieve symptoms of menopause origin and in recent times extracts of
these plants have been studied in order to determine if any contain chemicals
which can be applied in “modern” medicine.
Dong Quai, Bupleurum, Atractylodes, Ginger and Salvia roots have all been used
in various combinations to produce Chinese herbal medicines to treat menopause
symptoms but no single substance was identified which had a major and sustained
influence on reducing the distressing symptoms of estrogen deficiency.