History of Pharmacognosy

The history of pharmacognosy is viewed as the history of pharmacy. The use of herbal medicines was originated much earlier even before humans know about Pharmacognosy. It is as old as human civilization. The documents many of which are antiquity showed that plants and herbs were used medicinally in India, China, Egypt, and Greece long before the beginning of the Christian era.

 The detailed description of Pharmacognosy History given below_   

• Papyrus Ebers - An old document (scroll 60ft long and a foot wide) written in 1500B.C.Which mentioned about more than 800 formulae and 700 different drugs and there use in human anatomy.
• Pen-t’sao – An oldest known herbal written by Emperor Shen Nung around 3000B.C. It contains 365 drugs one for each day. 
• Materia Medica- in the nineteenth century it was used for the subject now known as PHARMACOGNOSY.
• Indian history of Pharmacognosy: Indians have worked to examine and classify the drug which they came across, into groups called Gunas. 
• Charaka made 50 groups of 10 herbs which would suffice ordinary physicians' needs according to him.
• Sushrutha arranged 760 herbs in 7 distinct sets based on their common properties.
• Ayurveda (An ancient Science of life) also known as the Indian system of medicine. 
• Charaka Samhita and Sushrutha Samhita are the oldest written documents in Ayurveda.  
• Rigveda and Atharvaveda (3500 – 1500B.C.) contains medicinal properties of plants.

Contributions of Scientist towards Pharmacognosy

YEAR	SCIENTIST NAME	WORK DONE
460 – 360B.C.	Hippocrates	“Father of Medicine”. Worked on human anatomy and physiology.
131 – 200 A.D.	Galen	The first Pharmacist. Known to have had a number of Pain-Relieving Material in his Apothecary.
384 – 322 B.C.	Aristotle	A well-known Philosopher. Known for writing on Animal and Plant kingdom.
370 – 322 B.C.	Theophrastus	Study of the Plant kingdom.
1493 – 1541	Paracelsus	Development of mineral salt which might have a universal curative agent.
1645 – 1715	Nicolas Lemery	Given importance of Extraction and extractant (Alcohol).
1707 – 1778	Swede Linnaeus	Introduced and classified biomedical system of plants.
1785	William Withering	Published medicinal properties of foxglove leave based on 10years experimentation.
1803	Derosne	Isolated Narcotine from Opium.
1806	Sertuerner	Isolated Morphine from Opium. Given its role in alleviating pain.
1815	Seydler	Coined term “Pharmacognosy” in the title of his work “Analecta Pharmacognostica”.
1862 – 1863 1883 1887 - 1898	Bentham and Hooker A.W. Eichler Engler and Prandtl	Further developed Plant Classification.
1865	Berg	“Anatomical Atlas of crude Drug” was published.
1904	Greenish and Collin	“An Anatomical Atlas of Powdered Vegetable Drugs” was compiled.

Terms Related to herbal medicine:-

• Herbs: Herbs include crude plant materials such as leaves, flowers, fruits, seeds, stems, wood, bark, roots, rhizomes, or other plant parts.
• Herbal Materials: It includes fresh juices, gums, fixed oils, essentials oils, resins, and dry powders of herbs.

• Herbal Medicine: It includes herbs, herbal materials, herbal preparations, and finished herbal products.

• Herbal Preparation: Herbal preparation is the basis for the finished herbal products. it may include powdered herbal material, extracts, tinctures, and fatty oils. They are produced by extraction, fractionation, purification, concentration.

• Finished Herbal Product: it consists of one or more herbs of herbal preparation.

• Contamination: The undesired introduction of impurities to starting or an intermediate product called contamination.

• Cross-Contamination: Contamination of starting, intermediate or finished product by another starting material or product during production.

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