Thermal analysis of mumiyo, the legendary folk remedy from the Himalaya region

Mumiyo is a natural product found mainly in the high mountain ranges of the Himalayas and in some other regions, too. It has been well known as an expensive remedy for a number of diseases for thousands of years. It disappeared completely from the Western medicine and pharmacology, but was frequently used in the former Soviet Union. The present paper concentrates on physical, chemical and microbiological properties of mumiyo, investigated by means of thermal analysis, flow microcalorimetry, capillary electrophoresis, scanning electron microscopy, determination of its natural radioactivity and conventional bioassays with bacteria and fungi. The paper shows that mumiyo is a complex mixture of effective pharmacological substances that acts as a natural bacteriostatic or even bactericidal agent.     

Microcalorimetric investigations on the influence of propolis on the bacterium micrococcus luteus

Propolis or bee-glue is the third important product of honey bees after honey and wax. Known for thousands of years for its curative effects it is finding evermore attention in alternative and classical therapy in recent times against, e.g. infections, inflammations, dermatologic diseases and in wound healing.

Microcalorimetric experiments were performed on the influence of several propolis samples from Germany, Uruguay, Ethiopia and of a commercial propolis tincture on growth and metabolism of the recommended gram-positive bacterium Micrococcus luteus. Propolis extracts were prepared following established recipies for the water-soluble and insoluble components and the precipitate.

Addition of these extracts to a growing M. luteus culture in different growth phases resulted in a strong decline of the heat production rate, a prolongation of the lag phase or an introduction of a new, second lag phase, while the form of the calorimetric power-time curve remained unchanged. The calorimetric response showed a linear dependence on the propolis concentration. Although the quantitative gain of the extracts from the different propolis samples was nearly constant, the effects varied considerably between the specimens used.

The calorimetric investigations were supplemented by polarographic oxygen monitoring and by the standard agar well technique to determine the growth inhibition factor of the propolis extracts.