Introduction to Pharmacognosy

Introduction to Pharmacognosy

• Pharmacognosy is considered the "mother of all sciences".
• This is due to its historical importance and role in discovering medicinal properties of plants.

Methods of Acquiring Knowledge of Medicinal Properties of Plants

• Early methods included:
  • Trial and error for discovering the effect of plants.
  • Observation of animals for identifying palatable and non-palatable plants.
  • Accidental discovery.
  • Analyzing the plant's physical characteristic (Signature of Nature)

Monopolization of Knowledge

• Medicine men often monopolized drug knowledge, keeping it hidden in forms of chants or incantations.

Pre-Historic Evidence of Pharmacognosy

• 60,000 B.C., Shanidar, Iraq
• The remains contained pollen grains from seven to eight plant species.

New Stone Age (8,000-5,000 B.C.)

• Shift from food gathering to food production.
• Women played a role in preparing food and healing potions, while men were responsible for documenting these remedies.

Early Arabic and European Records (3,300 B.C.)

• Birch Polypore (Medicinal Mushrooms):
  • Scientific name: Piptoporus betulinus or Fomitopsis betulina
  • Active Compound: Agaric acid
  • Medicinal Uses: strong purgative and anti-mycobacterial, but toxic

Ancient Mesopotamia

• Cuneiform writing was the dominant form of communication.
• "Treatise of Medical Diagnosis and Prognosis" (1600 B.C.):
  • A series of 40 tablets compiled by Jean Baptiste Labat, documenting the management of excessive bleeding.
• Babylonians (c. 3000 B.C):
  • Early records of apothecary practices
  • Clay tablet texts provide records of symptoms, prescriptions, and instructions for compounding remedies followed by invocations to the gods.

Ashipu and Asu

• Ashipu: Diagnosed ailments.
• Asu: Specialist in herbal remedies

Ancient China

• Emperor Sheng Nung (c. 2700 B.C.):
  • Investigated herbs by tasting, determining their qualities.
  • Compiled the Pen T-Sao, a record of 365 drugs, including podophyllum, rhubarb, ginseng, stramonium, cinnamon bark, and ephedra.
• Shang Hang Lun written by Chang Chung-Ching
• Chin Kuei Yao Lueh: Companion book to Shang Hang Lun, providing basis of classical Chinese herbal formulas used in Kampo.
• Pen T’sao Jing Ji Zhu written by Tao Hong Jing:
  • Compiled 730 herbs, classified into 6 categories.

Kampo

• Traditional Japanese Medicine, sometimes referred to as low-dose TCM.
• Daidoruijoho: Compendium of Japanese medicine compiled by Yasuyori Tamba in 984.
• Ishinho: Contained medical knowledge from the Sui and Tang dynasties (30 scrolls)

Sui Dynasty (598-618)

• Sui Shu Jing Ji Zhi: Bibliography of the History of Sui (covering the Sui dynasty)
• Zhong Zhi Yue Fa: How to cultivate herbs.
• Ru Lin Cai Yue Fa: How to collect herbs in the forest.

Sung Dynasty (960-1276)

• Standard pharmaceutical system established in China
• Preparation methods varied based on specific disease treatments.

Later Ming Dynasty

• Herbal with Commentary (Pen T’sao Kan Mu) by Li Shi Zhen:
• 3 revisions, including 1892 drugs, 1160 drawings, and more than 11,000 prescriptions.

Ancient Egypt

• Ebers Papyrus (1550 B.C.):
  • Comprehensive medical document, detailing 800 prescriptions and 700 drugs.
• Edwin Smith Papyrus (1600 B.C):
  • Surgical instructions and cosmetic formulas.
• Kahun Medical Papyrus (1900 B.C):
  • Oldest and related to women's health including birthing instructions.

Ayurvedic Writing

• Mentioning medicinal plants (ricinus, pepper, lily, valerian).
• Organized into three main parts (Caraka Samhita being most important), and three minor parts (Sarrngadhara Samhita, Bhava Prakasa Samhita, and Madhava Nidanam Samhita).

Other Asian Traditional Medicine - Jamu

• Indonesian traditional medicine practiced from 800 CE to 900 CE.
• Kalpataruh leaves ("the tree that never dies") used to make medicines.
• Important Manuscripts: Serat kawruh bab jampi-jampi ('A treatise on all manner of cures') and Serat Centhini ('Book of Centhini').

Remedies from Indonesia

• Included in Jamu: cloves, nutmeg, Java tea, jambul, galangal.
• These plants are still used globally for medicinal and culinary purposes.

King Ashurbanipal

• 668-626 B.C
• Suggested Sumerians traded crude drugs by 2500B.C.
• Assyrians in 660 B.C recognized, discovered, and cultivated 250 drugs.

Ancient Greece and Rome

• Hippocrates (460–377 BC): "The Father of Medicine".
• Aristotle (384–322 BC): Student of Plato. Cataloged over 500 plants and their medicinal uses.
• Theophrastus (370-287 B.C): Wrote De Historia Plantarum and De Causis Plantarum detailing different plants and how they were used medicinally and grown.
• Krateus (c. 100 B.C): First herbalist to produce an illustrated work on medicinal plants.
• Pedanios Dioscorides (40–80 AD): Composed De Materia Medica (500 medicinal plants).
• Pliny the Elder (23–70 A.D): Compiled Natural History containing a substantial collection of plants from the Roman Period.
• Claudius Galen (2nd Century AD): Codified drug preparation using multiple ingredients by mechanical means ("Galenicals").
• Materia Medica: Medicinal materials and substances derived from natural sources.

Middle Ages

• Ibn Sina (980–1037): Important contributor to Pharmacy and Medicine, author of Book of Healing (Kitab Al-Shifa) and Canon of Medicine.
• Ibn Albitar (770–850):
• Worked primarily in the area of medicine and pharmacy, detailing properties of many medicinal herbs.
• Ibn Albitar (1148–1197): Detailed a treatise on cures and other remedies.

Separation of Pharmacy and Medicine

• 1240 AD, Sicily and southern Italy separated pharmacy from medicine.
• Frederick II of Hohenstaufen introduced the first European edict separating pharmacy from medicine, regulating pharmacists' professional practice.

Anglo-Saxon Leechcraft

• Herbarium Apuleius and the Leech Book of Bald contain numerous formulas and herbal remedies.
• Family Myddvai practiced herbalism, documented by physicians of Myddvai.

Monasti Pharmacy

• During the Middle Ages, knowledge was preserved in monasteries.
• Monks cultivated, translated, and copied manuscripts in monastery libraries.
• Herbs were prepared based on apothecary practices.

The Renaissance

• Otto Brunfels.
• Hiernonymus Bock

The First Official Pharmacopoeia

• De Nuovo Receptario - First official pharmacopoeia, originating in Florence, Italy.
• Published in 1498, serving as the legal standard for the city-state.

Medicine at the Centre of the Americas

• 1552, Martín de la Cruz, the Libellus de Medicinalibus Indorum Herbis (Little Book of the Medicinal Herbs of the Indians), detailing medicinal practices of indigenous people.
• Quinine and D-tubocurarine are derived from South American plants.

Printed Reports in the European Tradition

• 1617 established the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries in London.
• 1673, Apothecaries formed their own garden of medicinal plants.
• Nicholas Culpeper compiled Culpeper's herbal, 17th century.
• Theophrastus Bombastus of Hohenheim (Paracelsus) introduced minerals into medical practice.

The 18th Century

• Johann Adam Schmidt (1759-1809)
• Carolus Linnaeus (plant naming and classification)
• Crude drugs were used as powders, extracts, or tinctures near the end of the 18th century.

The Era of Pure Compounds

• 1803, a new era in medicine started with drug isolation and identification.
• Morphine from opium (1817).
• Strychnine (1817), Quinine & Caffeine (1820), Nicotine (1828), Atropine (1833), Cocaine (1855).

19th Century

• Chemical structures of isolated compounds were determined.
• Progress in botany directly influenced pharmacognosy.

Early 19th Century

• Development of the field of natural product chemistry, particularly phytochemistry.
• Chemical properties of specific plants due to specific isolated molecules.

Pure Chemical Entities

• Morphine from opium poppy (Papaver somniferum).
• Salicin from willow bark (Salix spp.).
• Quinine from cinchona bark (Cinchona succirubra).

Other Chemical Entities

• Atropine from belladonna (Atropa belladonna).
• Caffeine from coffee shrub (Coffea arabica and Coffea canephora).
• Coniine from hemlock (Conium maculatum).
• Emetine from ipecacuanha (Cephaelis ipecacuanha and Carapichea ipecacuanha), used for medications
• Strychnine from nux-vomica (Strychnos spp) traditionally used as a tonic and stimulant.

Claude Bernard

• Conducted detailed studies on the pharmacological effects of plant extracts.
• Studied curare, an arrow poison from the Amazon
• Demonstrated that death from curare was due to muscle paralysis, not nervous system issues.

20th Century

• Animal kingdom; microorganisms were incorporated.
• Work in phytochemistry resulted in a distinct branch of science.
• Constituents were semi-synthesized and used as models for synthetic drugs.
• Antibacterial properties of fungal metabolites discovered, including penicillin (1928).

1915 onwards

• Large number of natural products or derivatives were introduced as medicines, including anti-cancer agents (e.g., paclitaxel), vinca alkaloids, antimalarial agents (artemisinin), galanthamine.

How Drug Information Was Stored

• Baked clay tablets (cuneiform tablets)
• Parchments
• Manuscript herbals
• Printed herbals
• Pharmacopeias
• Electronic storage

British Pharmacognosy

• Jonathan Pereira (1804–1853) - Founded British pharmacognosy.
• Daniel Hanbury (1825–1850) - Outstanding applied pharmacognosist.
• E. M. Holmes (1843–1930) - Applied pharmacognosist.
• H. G. Greenish (1855-1933) and T. E. Wallis (1876–1973) transformed pharmacognosy by eliminating adulteration from drugs.

Philippine Pharmacognosy

-Magdalena C. Cantoria (1924–2008) - Researched morphology, physiology, and biochemistry of drug plants.

• Her research was particularly on the pharmacognosy of agar, rauwolfia, datura, mint, and piper species.

William Withering

• Discovered the use of digitalis and documented in "An Account of The Foxglove and Some Medicinal Uses."
• In 1785, the first active ingredient of digitalis was isolated and termed digitoxin.

Friedrich Wilhelm Adam Sertürner

• Isolated the first narcotic principle in opium, termed morphine and proved alkaloids' importance.

Joseph-Bieniamin Caventou and Pierre-Joseph Pelletier

• Isolated Emetine-Ipecacuanha, Strychnine & Brucine-Nux Vomica, Quinine & Cinchonine-Cinchona barks.