Learning from some very old school medicine
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| URI’s Youngken Medicinal Garden offers an up-close look at the roots of modern medicine and is open to the public for both formal and self-guided tours. (URI Photo) |
We don’t know if Heber W. Youngken Jr. was a Joni Mitchell fan but his namesake garden at the University of Rhode Island neatly reverses her 1970 hit, replacing a parking lot with a paradise.
The garden is named after the College of Pharmacy’s founding dean, a pioneer in the study of medicinal plants. Now, with 300 medicinal plants, the courtyard and garden are a living art installation on the URI campus. It’s also one of the largest established medicinal gardens in New England, showcasing plants that help treat diseases ranging from anxiety to heart disease to cancer.
Elizabeth Leibovitz, medicinal garden coordinator in URI’s
College of Pharmacy, would like to welcome more visitors to explore the garden.
Good medicine
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| Undergraduate pharmacy students harvest plants from the garden, then head to the chemistry lab to identify medicinal components. (Photo Matthew Bertin) |
Gardens are good medicine with ‘outdoor therapy’
increasingly recognized as a useful antidote to a stressful day or news cycle.
During the school year, Leibovitz is busy as a resource for students and
faculty in URI’s Medicinal Garden, but she is also available to share her
knowledge with visitors at any time of the year.
The medicinal garden lies between Woodward, Avedisian and Tyler Halls, where that former parking lot used to be. The garden was originally started near Fogarty Hall in 1957 by Youngken, URI’s first dean of pharmacy. He wanted students to know and understand pharmaceutical plants, many of which have a long history for treatment or use. Today, the garden is an outdoor classroom for URI pharmacy classes.
“The garden still serves that purpose today as Heber wanted,” Leibovitz says.
“Pharmacy students need to know about the plants that
patients are consuming and can interact with,” Leibovitz says. “There is a
perception that natural is always better or safe, and that’s not always true.
There can be interactions between herbal products and medicines such as blood
thinners. It’s important for our graduating students to understand this.”
Leibovitz assists students with selecting and harvesting
plants on the first day of BPS 451 (Techniques in Medicinal Chemistry and
Molecular Biology). Students later dry and purify these extracts and become
proficient with using HPLC to analyze the constituents. HPLC (High Performance
Liquid Chromatography) is an instrument widely used in the pharmaceutical
industry, and is a skill that helps land students summer internships and jobs.
Leibovitz’s enthusiasm is contagious as she points out
plants and their uses, from cinnamon for blood sugar to foxglove (Digitalis
purpurea), used to make the heart medicine digoxin, to plants that form the
basis of bitters for cocktails. She also grows hops (Humulus lupulus) on
tall vines, showcasing the plant’s historical use and therapeutic,
antimicrobial actions.
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| Young summer visitors enjoy making paper from mugwort, an invasive species. (Photo Yvonne Wingard) |
Leibovitz can also point out plants that have dangerous
properties and regularly presents at the annual Rhode Island Herb Festival,
discussing drug interactions with herbs. She hopes to find common ground
between integrative and traditional medicine, seeing value in both.
“They have different strengths,” she says. “There can be a
synergy between the two approaches.”
Leibovitz is glad to see visitors build not just knowledge,
but also enthusiasm for plant life.
“I like seeing people come here and get excited,” she says.
“When someone has a recognition of a plant, they are building a connection with
it. You can take that wherever you go and see its story in the world.”
Leibovitz enjoys talking to high school students and the
prospect of piquing their interest in a future career or subject of study:
“Studying pharmacy might not be on a student’s radar but there are lots of
career opportunities in this field,” she notes. “They might be a pharmaceutical
researcher and look for new drugs someday.”
Plants from the medicinal garden are also included in the
University’s new
online plant database, which debuted this past year.
“Our hope is to be a plant source and also build plant
awareness and connections,” Leibovitz says. “This used to be a parking lot, but
doesn’t feel like it any more. This space serves as a community hub where
special things can be found and are happening. The real point of the garden is
to share the green world and the amazing parts of nature, to get people away
from desks and screens and just enjoy the wonder that is nature.”
To request a tour of the Heber W. Youngken Jr. Medicinal
Garden, email elizabeth_leibo@uri.edu or
call (401) 874 -2849. Tours are free year-round, but must be scheduled in
advance. The garden is open to the public dusk-dawn and also offers curriculum
for school groups. Follow for updates at @urimedicinalgarden.
