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The Benefits of Studying Medicinal Plants and Ethnobotany (page 2)
by Kimberly Johnson, MD

One of the most ubiquitous and sophisticated uses of plants by humankind has been their use for medicine.

A Brief History of the Study of Medicinal Plants

People have relied on plants for staying healthy and treating illness for millenia. In the New World Tropics, for example, archaeological remains of plants used as medicine have been dated to 8000 B.C. (King, in Balick et. al. 1996).

Extensive written lists of herbal medicines have survived since antiquity, including the Pen Ts'ao, written by herbalist Shen Nung in 2800 B.C. which lists 366 plants drugs including the familiar ephedra. The history of Western medicine begins with the Greek physician Dioscorides, who wrote De Materia Medica in A.D. 78, describing over 600 medicinal plants, including aloe and opium.

The Swiss pharmacist-physician Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, better known as Paracelsus, advocated the use of chemical remedies and originated the field of medicinal chemistry in the early 16th century; however, Dioscorides' writings remained the standard text until the early 19th century.

In 1803 the German pharmacist Friedrich Wilhelm Adam Sertürner first isolated alkaloids from plants, a class of chemicals with many potent physiologically active compounds (including quinine, atropine, cocaine, and tubocurarine). Medicinal chemistry research and development blossomed thereafter.

The study and use of medicinal plants has a long history, and the human dependence on plants for medical interventions continues today. In nations with rich botanically based medical traditions, such as India and China, plant medicines predominate. Ayurvedic and other traditional healers in South Asia use at least 1,800 different plants species (Tuxill 1999). In China where medicinal plant use goes back at least 4 millenia, over 5,000 medicinal plants have been recorded, and about 1,000 are used in current practice (Tyler, in Balick et. al. 1996). But in Western medicine, respect for the power of plants has largely been lost...

... which is why there is a distinct need to Reintroduce Medicinal Plant Use to Modern Medical Practices.

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References on this page:

Balick, M.J., E. Elisabetsky, and S. Laird, eds. 1996. Medicinal Resources of the Tropical Forest: Biodiversity and its Importance to Human Health. New York: Columbia University Press.
Articles by authors in the above text:

Tuxill, J. 1999. Nature's Cornucopia: Our Stake in Plant Diversity. Worldwatch Paper 148. Worldwatch Institute, Washington DC.

Farnsworth, N.R. et al. 1985. "Medicinal plants in therapy." Bulletin of the World Health Organization. 63 (6): 965-81.