Medicine, therapeutics and medicinal plants

In the Western World, as many people became concerned at the potency and side effects of new drugs, there is an increasing interest in the alternative systems, including phytotherapy, and as the pharmacist must be the best qualified to advise on, and supply all drugs (e.g. herbal products) we give below our scientific opinion about the real position of plants in modern therapy. Records extant from Ancien egypt, Assyria, Greece and roma show that the use of plants for medicinal purposes exetnd back to our earliest recorded history. during the course of history, the cure of disease and the use of medicinal plants has been much influenced by religious practice and the exercise of magical rites. Thus the philosophy of the "Doctrine of Signatures" introduced by Paracelsus in the sixteenth century had considerable sway for four centuries and was not completely abandoned until the modern era of phytochemistry and pharmacology gave an alternative system for the rationalization of the use of plants in medicine. However, for most of herbal remedies, it is not still possible to demonstrate or evaluate their pharmacological activity, and the situation is complicated by the frequent use of a number of drugs in combination, the supposed active constituents of which have not been elucidated. Arising from this, orthodox medicine came to disregard sub "polypharmaceutical" preparations and concentrated research on the isolation of natural individual components having, for example, demonstrable anticancer, hypotensive ; antiplasmodial or antimicrobial properties