MedPlants4Vet - Completion of a MP4V Virtual Mobility

The Grantee got access at restricted sections at Bygdøy Folk Museum, looking at the earliest sources for market authorization for veterinary medicine in Norway. These did not include any HVMPs, but it was useful nontheless! (Photo: Ingvild Engvik)

The Digitalization of the books at the National Library sped up the process for researching historical literature in WG3 subgroup 1. Sourse: Billing et.al. Hestedyrlægen [screenshot]. Guldberg & Dwonkowski. Available at: https://www.nb.no/items/ced9a9795f61f9be685f09bbbd8416f3?page=1

Through a MP4V Virtual Mobility grant, Scandinavian sources on herbal veterinary medicine were systematically analysed. The work, carried out by Ingvild Engvik, strengthens knowledge on regulation and historical plant use across Norway, Sweden and Denmark.

On 1 September, MP4V launched its final Virtual Mobility (VM) call for Working Groups 2 and 3, with a Scandinavian focus. The VM grant was awarded to Ingvild Engvik, who conducted the work remotely, using the opportunity to deepen her knowledge of herbal veterinary medicinal products (HVMPs) and to strengthen virtual collaboration within the Action.

While this VM grant was originally projected towards WG2 and WG3, WG1 was included to cover Scandinavia. This resulted in a collection of info about the history and status of the legislative framework surrounding authorization of HVMPs in Scandinavia, where all three countries have similar contexts.

For WG2, The Norwegian, Swedish and Danish MPA was contacted to confirm that there are not any registered HVMPs. The Norwegian Veterinary Institute was helpful in the process of making sure the status were correct. There was however a finding of a vademecum in Norway from 1952, published by the Norwegian veterinary society. This was one of the highlights in the research process, and hopefully of use.

For WG3 subgroup 1, only Norwegian sources were in focus. Extracting the information about the plants and recipes from the old books were hard, because of old type font, old language, different plant names and varying degrees of details. What really sped up process was the digitalisation of the National Library's sources. Some books from 1785–1952 were found, revealing the widespread historical use of medicinal plants across Norway.

This VM grant provided the grantee Ingvild Engvik with opportunities for new knowledge about Scandinavia's ethnobotanic history, virtual collaboration, as well as new contacts – and hopefully possibilities to meet in person some day!

Completion of a MP4V Virtual Mobility – Scandinavian focus