PHARMACOGNOSY

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 Topic Outline
1. General Introduction
1.1 Definition
1.2 Brief history of Pharmacognosy
1.3 Scope of Pharmacognosy

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 Definition of pharmacognosy
• In a broad sense, Pharmacognosy embraces a
knowledge of the history, distribution, cultivation,
collection, selection, preparation, commerce,
identification, evaluation, preservation, and use of drugs
and economic substances affecting the health of man
and other animals.

• Such economic substances extend beyond the category

of crude drugs and their derivatives and include a variety
of commercial products: allergens, allergenic extracts,
antibiotics, immunizing biologicals, flavouring agents,
condiments, beverages, insecticides, rodenticides, and
herbicides. In a restricted sense, the definition of
Pharmacognosy implies a particular knowledge of
methods of identification and evaluation of drugs.
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 Definition of pharmacognosy
• Pharmacognosy may be defined as a branch of
bioscience which treats in detail medicinal and
related products of crude or primary type from
plant, animal and mineral origins.
• In short, it is an objective study of crude drugs
from natural sources treated scientifically and it
encompasses the knowledge of the history,
distribution, cultivation, collection, processing
for market, preservation, the study of sensory,
physical, chemical and structural characters and
the uses of crude drugs.
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• Pharmacognosy also includes study of
other materials used in pharmacy
such as suspending, disintegrating and
flavouring agents, filtering aids, etc.
And substances like antibiotics,
allergens, hallucinogenic and
poisonous plants, immunizing agents,
pesticides, raw materials for the
production of oral contraceptives etc.
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 History
• Nature always stands as a golden mark to exemplify the
outstanding phenomenon of symbiosis.
• The plants are indispensable to man for his life.
• The three important necessities of life - food, clothing and
shelter- and a host of other useful products are supplied to
him by plant kingdom.
• Nature has provided a complete store-house of remedies
to cure all ailments of mankind.
• The human being appears to be afflicted with more
diseases than any other living species.
• In the past almost all the medicines used were from the
plants, the plant being man’s only chemist for ages.
• Today a vast store of knowledge concerning therapeutic
properties of different plants has accumulated.
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 History
• The history of herbal medicines is as old as human
civilization.
• The documents, many of which are of great antiquity,
revealed that plants were used medicinally in China, India,
Egypt and Greece long before the beginning of the Christian
era.
• One of the most famous surviving remnants is Papyrus
Ebers, dating back to the sixteenth century before Christ.
The text of document is dominated by more than 800
formulae and 700 different drugs.
• The drugs such as acacia, castor oil and fennel are
mentioned along with apparent references to such
compounds as iron oxide, sodium chloride, sodium
carbonate and sulphur. Dr Y.R 7
 History
• Most of the medicinally active substances
identified in the nineteenth and the twentieth
centuries were used in the form of crude
extract.
• Originally - during the 19th C and the
beginning of the 20th C Pharmacognosy was
used to define the branch of medicine or of
commodity sciences, which dealt with drugs
in their crude, or unprepared form = crude
drugs
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 History
• In china, many medicinal plants had been in use since
5000 B.C.
• The oldest known herbal literature is Pen-t’sao written by
emperor Shen Nung around 3000 B.C.
• It contains 365 drugs, one for each day of the year.
• Indians also worked meticulously to examine and classify
the herbs which they came across, into groups called
Gunas.
• 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
wets based on some of their common properties.
• A large portion of 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 and Sushrutha Samhitha.
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 History
• Following the contribution to medicine by Hippocrates (460-377 B.C)
“Father of medicine”
• Aristotle (384-322 B.C)
• Greek Scientist, botonist and Philosopher Theophrastus(372-287B.C)
• Dioscorides (40-80 A.D)
• Galen (131-200A.D) and the early Arabian physicians there was a period
of approximately 1000 years during which little, if any, progress was made
in the medical sciences.
• The first pharmacist, Galen, was known to have had a number of pain-
relieving materials, including opium in his apothecary.
• For the next few hundred years, the formulations of medicaments in use
changed very little, although some bold attempts were made by chemical
entrepreneurs such as Paracelsus(1493-1541) to develop mineral salts
which might have had the potential of being universal curative agents.
• However, throughout this period, the use of herbal extracts for medicinal
purposes never lost its place.
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 History
• The importance of extraction method and alcohol as an
extractant was reported by Le’mery (1645-1715), William
withering in 1785 published as account of some of the
medicinal properties of foxglove leaves based on ten years
of experimentation.
• Percolation process was used for the crude drugs.
• In 1803, the French Pharmacist, Derosne isolated narcotine
from opium.
• In 1806, Sertuerner isolated morphine from opium and its
role in alleviating pain was recognised.
• In the next few years, strychinine (1817), emetine (1817),
brucine (1819), piperine (1819), quinine (1820) and
colchicine (1820) were isolated.
• The French Pharmacist, Pelletier, first reported the
isolation of strychnine from ignatius beans and latex of
nuxvomica seeds.
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 History
• A new extraction process for alkaloids was
developed by Stass and Otto in 1852.
• Other important discoveries during this period
were the isolation of
nicotine from tobacco leaves(Posselt and
Reimann,1828)
cocaine (Neumann, 1860)
ouabine (Hardy and Gallows, 1877)
pilocarpine (Gerrard and Hardy, 1875)
ephedrine(Nagai, 1887) and
podophyllotoxin (kuersten,1877).
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• Thousands of plant and animal
products used for the treatment of
illness were described by Dioscorides
in his book "Dc Materia Medica."
• Of these surprisingly a large number
are still of importance in modern
therapeutic practice: Aspidium,
Cinnamon, Ergot, Hyoscyamus, and
Opium were used in much the same
manner as today.
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 History
• Isolation of ergometrine, digoxin,
reserpine, theophylline and quinidine are
the significant discoveries of the
twentieth century.
• Swede Linnaeus (1707-1778) the great
systematist classified the plants and
introduced the system of naming the
plants known as the binomial system
which is still followed.
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 History
• The word "pharmacognosy" derives from the Greek
words pharmakon (drug), and gnosis or knowledge. The term
pharmacognosy was used for the first time by the Austrian
physician Schmidt in 1811.
• Thus classically, Pharmacognosy was defined as the knowledge
of drugs.
• In the nineteenth century, the term ‘Materia Medica’ was used
for the subject now known as ‘Pharmacognosy’. While studying
Sarsaparilla, it was Seydler, a German scientist, who coined the
term ‘Pharmacognosy’ in 1815 in the title of his work
“Analecta Pharmacognostica”.
• Pharmacognosy is derived from two greek words, Pharmakon
(a drug) and Gignosco (to acquire knowledge of).
• The study of pharmakognosie was first developed in German-
speaking areas of Europe. The term drogenkunde ("science of
crude drugs") is also used synonymously.

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 History
• Materia Medica Meaning Medicinal Materials
From this humble beginning medicine and
pharmacy gradually emerged along separate
paths: the physician diagnosing the ailment and
prescribing the remedy and the apothecary or
pharmacist specializing in the collection,
preparation, and compounding of the substance.
Thus, the term materia medica (meaning
medicinal materials) was synonymous with the
substances and products derived from natural
sources and employed by the physicians of that
era.
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 History
• Originally - during the 19th century and the
beginning of the 20th century - "Pharmacognosy"
was used to define the branch of medicine or
commodity sciences ("Warenkunde" in German),
which dealt with drugs in their crude, or
unprepared, form. Crude drugs are the dried,
unprepared material of plant, animal or mineral
origin, used for medicine.
• Modern Pharmacognosy focuses on the chemical
components of the plant materials, including the
structure and pharmacological properties that are
responsible for their use in therapy.
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 Scope of Pharmacognosy
• The most comprehensive idea of the scope of
Pharmacognosy was presented by Fluckiger, who stated
that it "is the simultaneous application of various scientific
disciplines with the object of acquiring knowledge of drugs
from every point of view.“
• Pharmacognosy is one of the five major divisions of the
pharmaceutical curriculum, represents the oldest branch
of the profession of pharmacy.
• The ancients gathered herbs, animals, plants, and minerals
and concocted them into ill-flavoured pungent mixtures.
• Innumerable remedies were known to the early
practitioners of pharmacy and medicine, a fact indicated
by the writings of Theophrastus, Pliny, Dioscorides, and
their contemporaries.
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 Scope of Pharmacognosy
• The scope of Pharmacognosy includes 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.
• Pharmacognosy as an applied science has played a crucial
role in development of different disciplines of science.
• Pharmacognosy gives a sound knowledge of the vegetable
drugs under botany and animal drugs under zoology.
• A Pharmacognosist should possess a sound knowledge of
plant taxonomy, plant breeding, plant pathology and plant
genetics, which is helpful in the development of
cultivation technology for medicinal and aromatic plants.

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• Traditionally the scope includes:
– Identifying biological sources of drugs
– Assessing the efficacy and safety of herbal drugs
or their constituents as therapeutic agents using
scientific methods
• Modern concept in Pharmacognosy
– Securing regular supply of natural products
Cultivation
Increasing yield
Semi-synthesis
Synthesis
• Incorporation of a natural product in the system of
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• The paramount goal of pharmacognosy is
– comprehensive investigations of plant materials by use of
physical, chemical, and biological methods, and
– also the search for a possibility to use these materials as
natural medicines.
• Pharmacognosy is a broad discipline, which has
adopted different concepts from various disciplines
like chemistry, pharmacology, botany, agronomy,
biotechnology, biochemistry and medicine.
• Other areas that have natural association with
pharmacognosy are:
– poisonous and hallucinogenic agents, allergens, herbicides,
insecticides and molluscicides

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• Although Pharmacognosy is principally concerned with
medicinal plants,
– There are a small number of animal products which are
traditionally encompassed within it;
• These include such items as beeswax, gelatin, wool fat,
vitamins etc.
• Many of the animal kingdom, particularly marine organisms are
receiving increasing attention
• Other natural products such as antibiotics, hormones and
others may or may not be involved, depending on the teaching
practice of a particular institution.
• Materials having no pharmacological action which are of
interest to pharmacognosist are:
– natural fibers, flavoring and suspending agents, colourants,
disintegrants, stabilizers and filtering and support media
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 Scope of Pharmacognosy
• The knowledge of chemotaxonomy, biogenetic pathways
for formation of medicinally active primary and secondary
metabolites, plant tissue culture and other related fields is
essential for complete understanding of Pharmacognosy.

A VITAL CONTRIBUTION TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF NATURAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE :

• This has done by the advanced technologies of cultivation,
purification, identification (characterisation), of
pharmaceuticals from nature.
• Concepts of biochemistry and chemical engineering help
in the improvement of collection, processing and storage
technologies of pharmaceuticals. It also gives knowledge
of chemotaxonomy, biogenetic pathways for the
formation of acute ingredients.
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 Scope of Pharmacognosy
A VITAL LINK BETWEEN PHARMACOLOGY AND MEDICINAL CHEMISTRY :
• Newly detected plant drugs are converting into
medicine as purified phytochemicals.
• Pharmacognosy is essential for the evolution of
new medicines because crude drugs are used for
the preparation of galenicals or as a sources of
therapeutically active metabolites.
• Phytopharmaceuticals that is synthesized drugs
are finally formed in a suitable dosage forms and
in which the crude drugs can be act as a
intermediates.
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 Scope of Pharmacognosy
• In short Pharmacognosy is an important link between
pharmaceuticals and basic science as well as ayurvedic and
allopathic system of medicines.
• So Pharmacognosy is a science of active principles of crude
drugs and which can be helpful in dispensing, formulating,
manufacturing of dosage forms.
• In other way the complete knowledge of Pharmacognosy will
help in the recent trend that is in industries.
• As a research tool and in new drug delivery systems, and all the
departments of pharmaceuticals and one can improve the
health care facilities across the world.
• Although most pharmacognostic studies focus on plants and
medicines derived from plants, other types of organisms are
also regarded as pharmacognostically interesting, in particular,
various types of microbes (bacteria, fungi, etc.), and, recently,
various marine organisms.

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 Scope of Pharmacognosy
• Pharmacognosy is interdisciplinary, drawing on a broad
spectrum of biological and socio-scientific subjects,
including botany, ethnobotany, medical
anthropology, marine biology, microbiology,
herbalmedicine, chemistry, biotechnology,
phytochemistry, pharmacology, pharmaceutics, clinical
pharmacy and pharmacy practice.
• The contemporary study of Pharmacognosy can be divided
into the fields of
• Ethnopharmacology: the study of the pharmacological
qualities of traditional medicinal substances; the study
of phytotherapy (the medicinal use of plant extracts); and
phytochemistry, the study of chemicals derived from plants
(including the identification of new drug candidates derived
from plant sources).
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 Scope of Pharmacognosy
• Medical ethnobotany: the study of the traditional use of
plants for medicinal purposes
• Zoopharmacognosy, the process by which animals self-
medicate, by selecting and using plants, soils, and
insects to treat and prevent disease.
• Pharmcognosy-Biotechnology, the synthesis of natural
bioactive molecules using biotechnology.
• Herbal interactions, the interactions of herbs with other
drugs and body.
• Marine pharmacognosy, the study of chemicals derived
from marine organisms.
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 Why do we study Pharmacognosy?
• Herbs and natural products offer a very good alternative source
of drugs
 The share of natural products in modern medicine is as high as 45 %
in developed countries
 In developing countries
 About 80 % of the population, rely on natural remedies and
 Almost every individual is believed to use herbal drugs at least
occasionally.
 The process is environmentally friendly.
 Natural products are more tolerated by the body.
 Plants are considered as big laboratories and mankind is said to have
used less than 3-5 % of what nature can potentially provide.
• The study of natural products can generate valuable information
for the synthetic chemist.
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