Pharmacology is a branch of medicine, biology, and pharmaceutical sciences concerned with drug or medication action, where a drug may be defined as any artificial, natural, or endogenous molecule which exerts a biochemical or physiological effect on the cell, tissue, organ, or organism. More specifically, it is the study of the interactions that occur between a living organism and chemicals that affect normal or abnormal biochemical function. If substances have medicinal properties, they are considered pharmaceuticals.
Herbal medicine is the study of pharmacognosy and the use of medicinal plants, which are a basis of traditional medicine. With worldwide research into pharmacology, some herbal medicines have been translated into modern remedies, such as the anti-malarial group of drugs called artemisinin isolated from Artemisia annua, a herb that was known in Chinese medicine to treat fever. There is limited scientific evidence for the safety and efficacy of plants used in 21st century herbalism, which generally does not provide standards for purity or dosage. The scope of herbal medicine commonly includes fungal and bee products, as well as minerals, shells and certain animal parts. Herbal medicine is also called phytomedicine or phytotherapy.
Traditional medicine comprises medical aspects of traditional knowledge that developed over generations within the folk beliefs of various societies, including indigenous peoples, before the era of modern medicine. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines traditional medicine as "the sum total of the knowledge, skills, and practices based on the theories, beliefs, and experiences indigenous to different cultures, whether explicable or not, used in the maintenance of health as well as in the prevention, diagnosis, improvement or treatment of physical and mental illness". Traditional medicine is often contrasted with scientific medicine.
Ethnobotany is the study of a region's plants and their practical uses through the traditional knowledge of a local culture and people. An ethnobotanist thus strives to document the local customs involving the practical uses of local flora for many aspects of life, such as plants as medicines, foods, intoxicants and clothing. Richard Evans Schultes, often referred to as the "father of ethnobotany", explained the discipline in this way:
Ethnobotany simply means ... investigating plants used by societies in various parts of the world.
Pharmacognosy is the study of medicinal plants and other natural substances as sources of drugs. The American Society of Pharmacognosy defines pharmacognosy as "the study of the physical, chemical, biochemical, and biological properties of drugs, drug substances, or potential drugs or drug substances of natural origin as well as the search for new drugs from natural sources".
Medicinal plants, also called medicinal herbs, have been discovered and used in traditional medicine practices since prehistoric times. Plants synthesize hundreds of chemical compounds for various functions, including defense and protection against insects, fungi, diseases, and herbivorous mammals.
Phytochemistry is the study of phytochemicals, which are chemicals derived from plants. Phytochemists strive to describe the structures of the large number of secondary metabolites found in plants, the functions of these compounds in human and plant biology, and the biosynthesis of these compounds. Plants synthesize phytochemicals for many reasons, including to protect themselves against insect attacks and plant diseases. The compounds found in plants are of many kinds, but most can be grouped into four major biosynthetic classes: alkaloids, phenylpropanoids, polyketides, and terpenoids.
Ethnoveterinary medicine (EVM) considers that traditional practices of veterinary medicine are legitimate and seeks to validate them. Many non-Western traditions of veterinary medicine exist, such as acupuncture and herbal medicine in China, Tibetan veterinary medicine, Ayurveda in India, etc. These traditions have written records that go back thousands of years, for example the Jewish sources in the Old Testament and Talmud and the Sri Lankan 400-year-old palm-leaf frond records of veterinary treatments. Since colonial times scientists had always taken note of indigenous knowledge of animal health and diagnostic skills before implementing their Western-technology projects.
Traditional African medicine is a range of traditional medicine disciplines involving indigenous herbalism and African spirituality, typically including diviners, midwives, and herbalists. Practitioners of traditional African medicine claim, largely without evidence, to be able to cure a variety of diverse conditions including cancer, psychiatric disorders, high blood pressure, cholera, most venereal diseases, epilepsy, asthma, eczema, fever, anxiety, depression, benign prostatic hyperplasia, urinary tract infections, gout, and healing of wounds and burns and even Ebola.
Quercus infectoria or the Aleppo oak is a species of oak well known for producing galls that have been traditionally used for centuries in Asia medicinally while also used in softening leather and in making black dye and ink.
Christophe Wiart is a French scientist.
In the field of drug discovery, classical pharmacology, also known as forward pharmacology, or phenotypic drug discovery (PDD), relies on phenotypic screening of chemical libraries of synthetic small molecules, natural products or extracts to identify substances that have a desirable therapeutic effect. Using the techniques of medicinal chemistry, the potency, selectivity, and other properties of these screening hits are optimized to produce candidate drugs.
A drug class is a set of medications and other compounds that have a similar chemical structures, the same mechanism of action, a related mode of action, and/or are used to treat the same disease.
Insects have long been used in medicine, both traditional and modern, sometimes with little evidence of their effectiveness. For the purpose of the article, and in line with custom, medicinal uses of other arthropods such as spiders are included.
Ina Vandebroek is an ethnobotanist working in the areas of floristics, ethnobotany and community health. Since 2005, she has worked at The New York Botanical Garden in the Institute of Economic Botany. She has worked on ethnobotanical projects in North America, the Caribbean, and South America.
Pulok Kumar Mukherjee is an Indian scientist working as the Director of Institute of Bioresources and Sustainable Development, an autonomous Institute under Department of Biotechnology, Govt. of India, Imphal, Manipur, India; as well as an Associate Editor of the Phytomedicine Plus; Consulting Editor of the Pharmacological Research published by Elsevier. He is the Professor of Pharmaceutical technology at the Jadavpur University and former Director of the School of Natural Product Studies, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India.
Cassandra Leah Quave is an American ethnobotanist, herbarium curator, and associate professor at Emory University. Her research focuses on analyzing natural, plant-based medicine of indigenous cultures to help combat infectious disease and antibiotic resistance. In particular, she studies bacterial biofilm inhibition and quorum-sensing inhibition of botanical extracts for inflammatory skin conditions.
The medical ethnobotany of India is the study of Indian medicinal plants and their traditional uses. Plants have been used in the Indian subcontinent for treatment of disease and health maintenance for thousands of years, and remain important staples of health and folk medicine for millions. Indians today utilize plants for both primary medical care and as supplementary treatment alongside modern medical science. It is estimated that 70% of rural Indians use traditional plant based remedies for primary healthcare needs. This reliance of plants for medicine is consistent with trends widely observed in the developing world, where between 65% and 80% of people use medicinal plant remedies.
