Apitherapy

History

References to possible medical properties of bee products can be found in Chinese, Korean, Russian, Egyptian, and Greek traditional medicine practices. Apitherapy has been practiced since the times of Hippocrates and Galen. Modern use of bee venom appears to have originated with Austrian physician Philipp Terč and his 1888 article "About a Peculiar Connection Between the Bee Stings and Rheumatism", but his claims were never tested in proper clinical trials. More recent alternative medicine practice is attributed to the Hungarian physician Bodog F. Beck who coined the term "bee venom therapy" in 1935, and to beekeeper Charles Mraz (1905–1999) in the latter half of the twentieth century. In 1957, the USSR Ministry of Health sanctioned use of bee venom to treat certain ailments by approval of Nikolay Artemov's "Instruction for Bee Sting Venom Apitherapy".

Humans have historically used bee products in various ways: beeswax was used in casting metals and making incendiary weapons, honey was used for food and religious offerings, propolis was used as an adhesive, and pollen was used for agricultural work such as plant breeding. Much later, there was an attempt to use bee venom clinically via injection by J. Langer at the University of Prague in the late 1890s and 1930, a firm in south Germany named Mack produced bee venom solution commercially. Apitherapy is used in traditional medicine in countries in Europe, Asia, and South America including China, Korea, and Russia.