Patella pellucida Patella pellucida Patella pellucida, common name the blue-rayed limpet, is a species of small saltwater limpet, a marine gastropod mollusc in the family Patellidae, the true limpets. This limpet occurs off the eastern Atlantic coasts from Iceland and Norway, to Portugal. It is absent from the Baltic Sea, East Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands. Up to 15 mm long when fully grown, this species is easily identified by its translucent amber shell with brilliant blue spots running in lines across the top of the shell. The blue-rayed limpet lives primarily on "Laminaria" (kelp) in strong flowing water but also on
Traditional Chinese medicines derived from the human body were successfully making quasi-empirical preparations of active substances with androgens and estrogens, a technique that modern biochemists did not develop until the early 20th century. The physician William C. Cooper and the sinologist Nathan Sivin (1973) chose what the Chinese call "rényào" 人藥 "human drugs" as a pilot experiment sample for pharmacologically analyzing the efficacy of drugs used in TCM. In contrast to many traditional Chinese plant, animal, and mineral pharmaceuticals with uncertain active constituents, the chemical composition of the human body and parts is well known, and "their therapeutic effectiveness, or lack of it, can be objectively, if approximately,