• Ozempic advances, Alzheimer's drugs and malaria vaccines, the scientific milestones of 2023

The pandemic overshadowed the 200th anniversary of 'Riaza's stew'. It was created in 1820 by the pharmacist Frutos Sanz y Agudo to treat malaria and had its heyday between 1860 and 1865. One of his descendants, Carlos Leopoldo García Álvarez, a dentist, has written one of the chapters of the book La puchera de Riaza. 200 years of the first Spanish specific, presented on December 4 at the Ateneo de Madrid.

The other authors are Antonio González Bueno, Professor of History of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Legislation at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) and member of the Royal National Academy of Pharmacy (RANF), and Julio González Iglesias, president of the Spanish Academy of Odontostomatology Studies.

Find out more

Bless you.

This is how a medical leaflet is 'translated' to understand how to take a drug and what effects it has

  • Written by: CRISTINA G. REAL MADRID

This is how a medical leaflet is 'translated' to understand how to take a drug and what effects it has

Bless you.

"Climate change puts diseases such as malaria or Marburg fever closer to us"

  • Written by: SOLEDAD VALLE Madrid

"Climate change puts diseases such as malaria or Marburg fever closer to us"

According to González, the pharmacist Sanz y Agudo did not discover gunpowder, "but he marketed it", as he explains in a video that was screened in 2022 during an exhibition at the Riaza City Council, also made by a relative of Sanz and Agudo.

Since patents did not exist at the time, the formula was secret, and was known only to the pharmacist and an assistant. Afterwards, the relatives and successors of Sanz y Agudo's pharmacy kept the formula a secret for several generations. Of course, this book publishes it openly.

Secret Formula

Ferrous sulphate: 7 grams.

Harmonic carbonate: 7 grams.

Potassium carbonate: 14 grams.

Cinchona calisaya: 90 grams.

White honey: 200 grams.

Water: 160 grams.

It was called "febrifuge electuary" and the base was cinchona calisaya, as well as a certain amount of syrup and honey (to lengthen the shelf life of the drug). Its properties were already known to the indigenous tribes (the tree is native to Andean countries, such as Peru), and later the Jesuits were the first to know its therapeutic usefulness. Sanz y Agudo, based on the literature of the time, chose cinchona calisaya because it had a higher alkaloid content.

The aim was to treat "tertian and quartan fevers", so called because they were intermittent fevers whose symptoms disappeared after three or four days, and then reappeared; in most cases they were malarial fevers or malaria, a disease then called "air sickness" (hence, malaria), which arrived in Europe from Africa, with Hannibal's armies. The preparation was also used to treat pneumonia and other febrile conditions.

The leaflet, written by Sanz y Agudo, was attached to each of the pots, containers that consisted of small clay pots with a single handle, with the necessary dose for a single patient. García Álvarez points out that "it was the first time that a leaflet was printed in our country with such a high dissemination." What was a milestone then, today is having the electronic leaflet, not on paper.

The leaflet, written by Sanz y Agudo, explains the way in which the remedy was to be taken: "In the morning, on an empty stomach, a regular spoonful dissolved in a small cup of water; after two hours, a few clear yolks with sugar, either chocolate or broth; at ten o'clock, another in the same terms; At noon it is eaten moderately when there is no fever and, if there is one, one broth is drunk, and another at two o'clock [...]".

How was the medicine distributed? "In charge of muleteers and itinerant merchants. [...] They offered Riaza's stew as one of their star products, because the demand was high."

García Álvarez points out in the book that "until the end of the nineteenth century the stew continued to be highly appreciated and brought good dividends to the family, although in a later stage some muleteers adulterated it, by diluting it with honey and water in empty pots and thus obtaining two or three measures for each original pot. This deception brought the drug into disrepute a lot." The evolution of the pharmaceutical industry also played a role, "with new, more effective and cheaper drugs".

Today, quinine, derived from cinchona, is still used as the basis for new, much more chemically elaborated drugs

Carlos L. Garcia

Why is it considered the first specific drug? "Because it was for a specific disease and with guidelines that were not used until then: dosage, packaging and administration indications. Previously, there were many pharmaceutical products, with active ingredients and mixtures of plant products, but they were used without a specific indication and without packaging as such, with the right dose for a person and a disease. In other words, this one was scheduled," García Álvarez explains to this newspaper.

García Álvarez comments that "today, quinine, derived from cinchona, is still used as a basis for new, much more chemically developed drugs. Apart from that, there is also the vaccine."

RELATED CONTENT

García Álvarez explains to this media that in 2020 they had everything ready to celebrate the bicentennial, but they had to postpone it because of the pandemic: "We did the events in 2022. It consisted of an exhibition of old pieces from a nineteenth-century pharmacy in the Town Hall of Riaza (Segovia), with large posters explaining the history of the Riaza stew and the descendants of the person who made it, Frutos Sanz". He points out that many descendants have been pharmacists. "The Segovia Provincial Council also published the book."

After spending two months in Riaza, this exhibition was moved to Segovia, where it remained for a month. "Three original pots from 1820 were shown in the exhibition. Of the three, one was given to the Riaza City Council so that it could be permanently installed in its premises. Another one is in the UCM Pharmacy Museum," he says.

  • Malaria
  • Pharmacology