Pharmacognosy and more….
- Dr Lucky Herbal Clinic
- Jan 18, 2018
- 2 min read
Many people don’t know what Pharmacognosy actually is – but if you want to become a medical herbalist and train with us, you will take it in your stride.
Pharmacognosy is the science that knows and recognises the plants with which the herbalist works; the Greek word pharmakon means ‘drug’ and gignosco ‘to acquire knowledge of’. The practice of this branch of science has been in existence for thousands of years – as long in fact as people have used plants to heal diseases. The specific term was first used in 1815 when Seydler published Analecta Pharmacognostica, and initially pharmacognosy was more or less identical with materia medica. Physicians at that time were their own pharmacists; they made their own medicines from plants. In monasteries certain monks would be trained as physicians and pharmacists and grown their own medicinal plants in the monastery herb garden.
But when towns grew up then physicians in urban areas had to rely on pharmacists to prepare medicines for them to use and in 1617 apothecaries established their own independent society. However, they began to import drug from abroad, and some of them were of dubious quality. Because of the problems that this produced [substitution of a cheap herb for an expensive one etc] the Pharmaceutical Society opened a museum of materia medica where people who handled crude drugs could compare what they had purchased with a sample in the museum.
The Society decreed that nobody could be admitted as a member unless they had passed an examination in identifying dried plant material. The first lectures in Pharmacognosy were given in London in 1842 and during the first 50 years it was taught in the form of pure macroscopical authentifucation and identification of pure dried plant material. As a science it relied heavily on botany [morphology, texture, colour, smell].
Pharmacognosy in its original form lost importance as pure chemical research replaced it. But today’s medical herbalists find it a useful skill to add to their range of competencies; we should always be able to correctly identify dried plant material to avoid contamination, substitution and to ensure good quality. I have return batches of dried herb before as I wasn’t satisfied that the dried matter looked as it should – that is our right..,
For more interesting information on the development of traditional pharmacy and herbalists you can read Barbara Grigg’s fascinating history of the development of herbal medicine.
This article used material from Jackie Saull-Hunt
Comments