Pharmacognosy

Pharmacognosy (from the Greek pharmakon - medicine, poison and gnosis - study, knowledge), the doctrine from botanical, zoological, and chemical points of view about plant and animal materials used for preparing medicinal substances. Pharmacognosy studies raw materials in relation to their origin and geographical distribution, morphological characteristics and features, physical properties, basic chemical composition, methods of collection, storage, determination of quality, and the value of the studied objects as raw materials for obtaining medicinal preparations. Historically, pharmacognosy was based for many centuries on the belief that natural plant and animal materials contain ready-made medicines against various diseases. In antiquity and the Middle Ages, such medicines were considered to be various organs of plants or animals as a whole. Paracelsus put forward the theory of "active principles," recognizing the medicinal value of certain substances contained in the material useful for medical application; everything else is "grass and kitchen seasoning," ballast or indifferent substances. Even until recently, traces of idealistic or religious beliefs could be found that nature has purposefully prepared medicinal substances against each disease and that they only need to be found. However, the scientifically substantiated view is that plant and animal organs are considered as raw material suitable for the manufacture of medicinal substances. The powerful progress of chemistry, in particular plant chemistry, physiological chemistry, and organic synthesis, makes it possible to seek raw materials not only with the hope of finding ready-made "active principles" in them, but also from the point of view of using their composition for the rational obtaining of necessary substances; we do not hesitate to manufacture atropine from henbane, caffeine from fish scales, adrenaline from kuzmicheva grass, etc. The study of Soviet plant resources (folk medicine, "home remedies") for the purpose of replacing imported medicinal plants is of special importance. Thanks to the study of folk medicine remedies, our medicinal catalog has already been enriched with such valuable substances as adonis (goritsvet), lily of the valley, water pepper, snake root, badan and many others. The doctrine of medicinal substances received special development from the beginning of the 19th century, when pharmacist Sertürner in Hanover discovered (1817) morphine in opium, pharmacists Pelletier and Caventou in Paris (1820) isolated quinine from cinchona bark, etc.; but at the same time, soon the decline of pharmacognosy began, since the replacement of medicinal raw materials with isolated preparations weakened the importance of pharmacognosy, increasing the importance of pharmaceutical chemistry; the latter took up the study of materials of mineral origin, largely removing them from the sphere of study in the department of pharmacognosy; also, pharmacognosy quickly began to lose many representatives of animal origin that could not withstand chemical, pharmacological, and clinical testing. At present, however, the importance of pharmacognosy is increasing again in connection with the development of factory pharmaceutical industry, which uses the most diverse plant raw materials to obtain alkaloids, glycosides, essential oils and other medicinal substances, often not containing the necessary substances in ready form, but only similar to them, allowing by means of not too complex synthesis ("resynthesis") to obtain the necessary preparations; also the progress of pharmacognosy becomes important in view of the inadequate replacement of many pharmacognostic objects (opium, digitalis and other cardiac means, ipecacuanha and many others) with individual "active substances" isolated from them. With the development of scientific control over medicinal raw materials, standard norms are being developed for pharmacognostic objects, and along with this, the physician gains greater confidence in the therapeutic use of medicinal raw materials instead of expensive and often hardly accessible chemical substances. Among Russian pharmacognosists, it is necessary to mention B. A. Tikhomirov (d. 1915), V. O. Podvysotsky (d. 1892), Dragendorf (d. 1898), N. Menting (d. 1893), Trapp (d. 1908), A. S. Ginzberg, A. F. Gaymerman, D. M. Shcherbachev and others; among foreign scientists, one can mention Flückiger, Moller, Hartwich, Gilg, Hanbury, Pereira, Greenish, Schaer and especially the name of the eminent scientist Tschirch, who is issuing in a second edition his six-volume classical work - Handbook of Pharmacognosy. Until recently (until 1924), pharmacognosy was taught to students of medical higher educational institutions and other medical schools as a separate subject; at present, pharmacognosy is taught only in pharmaceutical educational institutions.