History of pharmacognosy

Pharmacognosy – History

History of pharmacognosy is actually the history of medicine that is medicinal plants.

Pre-history:

The first or beginning of pre-history on use of medicinal plants or herbs or animals, and the place where and how used were not well known, and those information were unwritten for a long time. As a result, the pre-history on herbs was almost lost.

However, some information was recorded by oral transmission from generation to generation.

Written History of Pharmacognosy:

The written history has originated which was based on region, religion and culture etc.

The written history was divided into the following:

• The western medicine
• The Unani (Islam)
• The Ayurveda (Indian)
• The orient
• The Greek History
• The African System
• The western medicine:

This is originated in Mesopotamia and Egypt. Mesopotamia is considered as the first origin of human civilization. The Sumerians (people of ancient Mesopotamia) developed cuneiform tablet of herbal medicines. Those tablets are preserved in British museum.

In Egypt, information had been written on paper – Papyrus ebers (1600BC). It consisted of 800 prescriptions, mentioning 700 drugs.

The first pharmacopoeia named London Pharmacopoeia was published in 1618 and then British Pharmacopoeia was published in 1864.

Unani (islamic)

This herbal system was developed by Arabian Muslim Ibn Sina (980 – 1037 AD). He was a prince and ruler. He was a very brilliant pharmacist and physician who wrote a book – “Kitab-Al-Shifa”, meaning ‘Book of Healing’.

The book was written in Arabic language. This is a great contribution of Ibn Sina towards medical and pharmaceutical sciences.

The Ayurveda (Indian, 2500-600 BC):

Ayurveda is the term for traditional medicine of ancient India.

The word “Ayur” means ‘Life’ and “veda” means ‘The study of’; that is “Study of Life”.

The Ayurvedic writings were divided into three systems:

• Charaka Samhita
• Sushruta Samhita
• Astanga samhita.

The oldest writing was Charaka Samhita (6-700 years BC).

The book describes uses of many metallic drugs e.g., iron, mercury, sulphur, copper etc with herbs.

The orient (2700 BC):

This is originated from Chinese, Japanese and Tibetians etc. The orient herbalism was very old (142 – 220 BC) and called “Kampo”. The written documents were made by the King ‘Shen Nung’ (2700 BC) and Shang dynasty (1766 – 1122 BC) etc.

Shen Nung investigated medicinal value of several herbs and wrote a book – “Pen T-Sao” or native herbal.

The Greek History:

Some of the early naturalists, scientists and physicians who contributed enormously to the development of human knowledge about medicinal plants include following:

Hippocrates (Father of Medicine, 460-370 BC)

He was the first natural doctor who utilized simple remedies such as vinegar, honey, herbs etc. in healing. He is also known to have collected and identified a number of medicinal plants.

Aristotle (384-322 BC) :

He gave the philosophy of medicine. He listed more than 500 plants of medicinal importance.

Theophrastus (371-287 BC):

gave scientific basis of use of plants as medicine.

 Galen (131-200 AD):

a Greek pharmacist-physician. He developed the methods of preparing and compounding medicines by mechanical means. He was the originator of the formulae for a cold cream.

The African System (Tropical Africa, North and South America):

They kept information in their groups or tribes. The information is

transmitted from one generation to another.These regions are richest sources of medicinal plants and need to be explored for new drugs.

Pharmacognosy is basically all about medicinal plants and their uses, pharmacognosy relies upon the crude use of these plants after detail evaluation.