HISTORY OF PHARMACOGNOSY | HISTORY AND SCOPE OF PHARMACOGNOSY | HISTORY OF PHARMACOGNOSY SLIDESHARE

 

HISTORY OF PHARMACOGNOSY

S. Y B. PHARM / SEMESTER IV

PHARMACOGNOSY & PHYTOCHEMISTRY - I

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT:  In the early period, primitive man went in search of food and ate at random, plants or their parts like tubers, fruits, leaves, etc. As no harmful effects were observed he considered them as edible materials and used them as food. If he observed other effects by their eating they were considered inedible, and according to the actions he used them in treating symptoms or diseases. If it caused diarrhea it was used as purgative, if vomiting it was used as emetic and if it was found poisonous & death was caused, he used it as arrow poison. The knowledge was empirical and was obtained by trial and error. 

The history of herbal medicines is as old as human civilization. The documents many of which are antique revealed that plants were used medicinally in India, China, Egypt & Greece long before the beginning of Christian’s era.

In India knowledge of medicinal properties of plants are described in Rigveda & in Atharveda, from which Ayurveda has developed.

Pharmacognosy in Ancient Times (Before the Nineteenth Century) the medicines originated in Egypt and India. Medicines were recorded both in Papyrus Ebers of Egypt about 1,500 bc and later in Ayurveda of India. In papyrus, crocus, dried ox-bile juice, castor oil, and so on were mentioned. In about 77 ad, Dioscorides, a Greek doctor, kept a record of about 600 kinds of crude drugs in his compiled book “De Materia Medica”, a book that had played an important role in pharmacology and botany by the fifteenth century.

A large portion of the Indian population even today depends on the Indian System of Medicine - Ayurveda, 'An ancient science of life'. The well-known treatises in Ayurveda are Charaka Samhita dealing mostly with plants and Sushrutha Samhita in which surgery is also mentioned. Charaka made fifty groups of ten herbs each of which, according to him, would suffice an ordinary physician's need. Similarly, Sushrutha arranged 760 herbs in 7 distinct sets based on some of their common properties.

Ancient Rome also promoted it development. The Historia, written by Pliny (23–79 ad), gave a brief account of nearly 1,000 species of plants, most of which could be used for medicines. From ancient times to the middle of the nineteenth century, pharmacology had been in its traditional stage for all countries in the world. At that time, knowledge about medicines came mainly from senses and practical experiences.

Substances from plants and animal source are being used as food & drugs since ancient time. For that purpose history of pharmacognosy divided in to two parts.

1] Pre – Christian era

2] Post – Christian era

PRE-CHRISTIAN ERA

HIPPOCRATES (460 - 360 B.C.)

In Greece, Hippocrates, (born 460 B.C.E.), was a philosopher and known as the Father of Medicine. He founded a school of medicine that focused on treating the causes of disease rather than its symptoms. Disease was dictated by natural laws and therefore could be treated through close observation of symptoms. Hippocrates stressed discovering and eliminating the causes of diseases. His treatises, Aphorisms and Prognostics discusses 265 drugs, the importance of diet and external treatments for diseases. Before the birth of Jesus, Hippocrates was Greek scientist; He is regarded as the “Father of Medicine.” He also worked on Human Anatomy & Physiology; particularly on circulatory system & nervous system. He prepared famous oath for physicians, which is still taken by the doctors. He collected, identified and used a large number of medicinal plants.

GALEN (131 - 200)

Galen was Greek pharmacist; so it’s regarded as the ‘First Pharmacist of the world’. He worked on extraction of chemical constituents from plants. He developed various methods of extraction and therefore, the branch of pharmacy which deals with extraction of chemical constituents from plants & animals, is called as galenical Pharmacy. Galen was prominently a physician, surgeon and philosopher. The most accomplished of all medical researchers of ancient times and contributed greatly by to the understanding of numerous scientific disciplines including anatomy, physiology, pathology, pharmacology and neurology as well as philosophy and logic.

ARISTOTLE (384 BC -322 BC)

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander. Aristotle, also known as Father of Natural History, attempted the work on classifying animals and plants.

THEOPHRASTUS (390-280 B.C.E.)

Theophrastus was a student of Aristotle and a philosopher of natural history, considered by historians as the “Father of Botany.” He wrote a treatise entitled, Historia Plantarium, about 300 B.C.E. It was the first attempt to organize and classify plants, plant lore, and botanical morphology in Greece. It provided physicians with a rough taxonomy of plants and details of medicinal herbs and herbal concoctions.

CHRISTIAN ERA

PEDANIUS DIOSCORIDES

Pedanius Dioscorides a Greek physician, wrote a five-volume treatise concerning medical matters, entitled in Greek or De Materia Medica in Latin. This famous commentary covered about 500 plants along with a number of therapeutically useful animal and mineral products.

It documented the description and direct observations of plants, fruits, and seeds, and the effects that various drugs had on patients. De Materia Medica was the first extensive drug affinity system that included about a thousand natural product drugs (mostly plant-bases), 4,740 medicinal | usages for drugs, and 360 medical properties like antiseptic, anti-inflammatory, stimulants, etc.

CARL LINNAEUS (1707-1778)

Carl Linnaeus is Swedish botanist, physician and zoologist who laid the foundations for the modern scheme of Binomial Nomenclature; known as the ‘Father of Modern taxonomy’ and also considered one of the ‘Fathers of Modern Ecology’.

GREGOR JOHANN MENDEL (1822-1884)

Austrian Augustinian priest and scientist, and is often called the ‘Father of Genetics’ for his study of the inheritance of traits in pea plants. The progress achieved in botanical studies during 19‘century had a direct influence on Pharmacognosy.

GEORGE BENTHAM (1800-1884) AND SIR JOSEPH DALTON HOOKER (1817-1911)

One of the most significant and useful systems known as Genera Plantarium was devised by George Bentham and Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker who were British botanists working for Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in the latter part of the nineteenth century. They devised the system in a 3 volume work. In this they presented a formal system, for describing plants, which considered species with similar characteristics. A total of 202 groups were described, which they called “orders” now known as families. The system was renowned for being very practical and quite accurate at plant identification, but has been proven to have little relationship to plant evolutionary history or phylogeny.

LINNAEUS (1707-78)

It was the amazing work of Linnaeus (1707-78), the Swedish botanist,that introduced the binomial nomenclature.

The Systematic Botany is the branch of botany which deals with plant identification, nomenclature and classification. The term was first coined by French botanist A. P. de Candolle (1813). Linnaeus, the Swedish botanist used the term ‘Systematic,’ which 1s now used as a Linnaeus for the systematic classification of the plants and introduced the system of naming of plants which is still followed and includes identification, nomenclature and evolutionary relationships. Augustus Quirinus Rivinus (1652-1723), German physician and botanist; introduced the concept of classifying plants based on the structure of their flower, which influenced de Tournefort and Linnaeus. Joseph Pitton de Tournefort (1656-1708), French botanist; first to clearly define the concept of genus for plants.

LE’MERY (1645-1715).

The importance of the extraction methods and alcohol as an extractant was reported.

WILLIAM WITHERING (1741-1799)

 was an English botanist, geologist, chemist, physician and the discoverer of digitalis and in 1785 Withering published ‘An Account of the Foxglove leaves and some of its Medical Uses’, which contained reports on clinical trials and notes on digitalis’s effects and toxicity.

1787 PAULLITZRSKY introduced ergot in Obstetrics.

SERTURNER IN 1806 The first alkaloids morphine was isolated from opium poppy.

SEYDLER

Seydler was German scientist he wrote a book “Analecta Pharmacognistica” in 1815. In this book he used word Pharmacognosy First time he comes this word by combining two Greek words, viz, Pharmakon; means Drug and Gignosco; mens To acquire knowledge of.

In the next few years, Palletier and Coventou introduced strychnine (1817), emetine (1817) brucine (1819), piprine (1819), caffeine (1819), quinine and colchicines in (1820). This period of alkaloidal research is called as the alkaloid era.

A new extraction process for alkaloid was developed by Stass and Otto in 1852. Other important discoveries during this period were the isolation of nicotine from tobacco leaves. Aspirine was discovered by Felix Haffiman (1893) by using prototype salicin and boosted the researchers in the field of synthetic chemistry.