Biology and Medicine

Pharmacognosy of Plants

Mohamed G Elfaki^* Scientist, Professor of Microbiology, Department of Infection and Immunity, King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre, Alfaisal University College of Medicine, Saudi Arabia
^*Correspondence: Mohamed G Elfaki, Scientist, Professor of Microbiology, Department of Infection and Immunity, King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre, Alfaisal University College of Medicine, Saudi Arabia, Email:

Received: 11-May-2021 Published: 22-May-2021, DOI: 10.35248/0974-8369.21.13.e121

Pharmacognosy is the think about of plants or other common sources as a conceivable source of drugs. The American Society of Pharmacognosy characterizes pharmacognosy as "the ponder of the physical, chemical, biochemical, and organic properties of drugs, medicate substances, or potential drugs or sedate substances of common beginning as well as the seek for modern drugs from normal sources". The word "pharmacognosy" is inferred from two Greek words pharmakon (medicate), and gnosis (information) or the Latin verb cognosco (con, 'with', and gnosco, 'know'; itself a cognate of the Greek verb gignosko, meaning 'I know, perceive'), meaning 'to conceptualize' or 'to recognize'. The term "pharmacognosy" was utilized for the primary time by the Austrian doctor Schmidt in 1811 and 1815 by Crr. Anotheus Seydler in work titled Analecta pharmacognostica. Originally during the 19^th century and the starting of the 20^th century "pharmacognosy" was utilized to characterize the department of pharmaceutical or product sciences (Warenkunde in German) which bargains with drugs in their rough, or ill-equipped, frame. Rough drugs are the dried, ill-equipped fabric of plant, creature or mineral root, utilized for medication. The ponder of these materials beneath the title pharmakognosie was to begin with created in German-speaking zones of Europe, whereas other dialect zones frequently utilized.

In expansion to the already said definition, the American Society of Pharmacognosy moreover characterizes pharmacognosy as "the think about of characteristic item atoms (regularly auxiliary metabolites) that are valuable for their therapeutic, environmental, gustatory, or other utilitarian properties." Other definitions are more enveloping, drawing on a wide range of organic subjects, counting botany, ethnobotany, marine science, microbiology, home grown medication, chemistry, biotechnology, phytochemistry, pharmacology, pharmaceutics, clinical drug store and drug store practice.

Medical Ethnobotany: The ponder of the conventional utilize of plants for restorative purposes.

Ethnopharmacology: The ponder of the pharmacological qualities of conventional therapeutic substances; the consider of phytotherapy (the restorative utilize of plant extricates); and phytochemistry, the consider of chemicals inferred from plants (counting the recognizable proof of unused medicate candidates determined from plant sources). The carotenoids in primrose create shinning ruddy, yellow and orange shades.

All plants deliver chemical compounds as portion of their typical metabolic exercises. These phytochemicals are isolated into essential metabolites such as sugars and fats, which are found in all plants; and auxiliary metabolites compounds which are found in a littler extend of plants, serving a more particular function. For illustration, a few auxiliary metabolites are poisons utilized to prevent predation and others are pheromones utilized to pull in creepy crawlies for fertilization. It is these auxiliary metabolites and shades that can have helpful activities in people and which can be refined to create drugs examples are inulin from the roots of dahlias, quinine from the cinchona, THC and CBD from the blooms of cannabis, morphine and codeine from the poppy, and digoxin from the foxglove. Plants synthesize assortment of phytochemicals, but most are derivatives alkaloids are a course of chemical components.