“Folk Medicines” Of N.Z. To Be Collected

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28840, 10 March 1959, Page 20

“Folk Medicines” Of N.Z. To Be Collected

[From the London correspondent of “The Press.”}

LONDON, March 2. When a young New Zealand scientist, Dr. M. Martin-Smith, returns to the Dominion in June after eight years’ work in United States, Canadian and British universities, he intends to collect specimens of native plants, especially those thought by the Maoris to have medicinal values. The specimens will be dried and sent to the University of Glasgow, where Mr J. J. Lewis, senior lecturer in experimental pharmacology, is studying the medicinal properties of compounds which can be isolated from plants. Dr. Martin-Smith, who is a graduate of Victoria University, will leave Britain with his American wife, also a scientist, in the Rangitata on May 8. They will be in New Zealand until September. Mr Lewis and Dr. Martin-Smith do not know what they may find. “I am certain that compounds of chemical interest will be obtained,” said Mr Lewis recently. “It would be unwise to raise hopes or enter into too much speculation. Nonetheless, I think the expedition will be well worth while and there may be something in it of value not only to ourselves but for New Zealand, too. There must be many people in New Zealand with knowledge of folk remedies, some of whom may be interested enough'to get in touch with me. “Good Deal to Gain” “I have been interested for many years now in the pharmacological properties Of compounds which can be isolated from plants. This has led me to read a good deal about herbs and other natural materials used in folk medicine in various parts of the world. I believe we still have a great deal to gain by investigating these remedies and by making an additional and systematic survey of plants related to those known to contain pharmacologically active substances,” said Mr Lewis.

Dr. Martin-Smith’s plans to revisit New Zealand this year were taken as an opportunity to make a collection in the Dominion and the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain granted Mr Lewis £2OO to help with the expenses of the expedition once Dr. Mar-tin-Smith reaches New Zealand. He will be visiting his parents at 174 Oxford terrace, Lower Hutt.

A specimen of each plant will also be sent to Britain for the Pharmaceutical Society’s collection.

Dr. Martin-Smith has had a busy and distinguished career in chemistry since he left New Zealand. He left Auckland Grammar School in 1946 and graduated B.Sc. in both chemistry and zoology from Victoria University in 1949. The next year he held the Sir George Grey Scholarship in science and completed his master’s degree, in chemistry. For some months he worked in the agricultural chemistry section of the Cawthron Institute at Nelson and then, with a Fulbright travel grant, went to the United States to take his Ph.D. degree in organic chemistry at the University of Rochester, New York. He visited other United States and Canadian universities and worked for two years in Ottawa on a National Research Council of Canada postdoctoral fellowship. Dr. MartinSmith’s wife, formerly Miss Cecily Aggeler, of San Francisco, is now completing her Ph.D. degree at the University of Glasgow. They met at Rochester and came to Britain in 1956. The next year, a new section of chemical pharmacology was set up in the Department of Materia Medica and Therapeutics at the University of Glasgow, and Dr. Martin-Smith was appointed to the lectureship in charge of this section. Here, one of the main research interests is the isolation of natural products of possible pharmacological value and both Dr. Martin-Smith and Mr Lewis, who is a member of the same department mre looking forward to the New Zealand expedition providing much material for this project. “We will need all the help we can get,” said Mr Lewis. “Any help from people with knowledge of old Maori remedies, or plants poisonous to livestock and man will be welcome. A good deal’ is known about the unique flora of New Zealand, but much work on the chemistry and pharmacology of the plants remain to be done.”