" Pharmacognosy ": term coined in 1811 from the Greek " farmacon gnosis ", or KNOWLEDGE OF THE DRUG. The term "farmacon" has a double meaning: medicament and poison; this indicates that only a correct dosage allows us to benefit from a drug or a drug and determine its healthy appearance.
The discipline of pharmacognosy allows us to get to know a drug thoroughly, but to do this necessity of important premises deriving from biology, botany and organic chemistry; only by applying this knowledge is it possible to study the active sources and principles that are a healthy expression of that particular drug.
Pharmacognosy is a knowledge that has always been known, because it is the expression of an instinct towards health inherent to man and to the whole animal kingdom: every living being aims at its own survival. Since ancient times the instinct for health has been projected towards that world that helps man to preserve and preserve health, or the environment that surrounds him.
Most drug and drug sources come from the plant kingdom; there is no alternative: any molecule known to man for health purposes derives from the plant world; man did not invent anything, he simply transformed what already existed for his benefit. A classic example is given by the active ingredient of aspirin, acetyl salicylic acid, a molecule that human beings have learned to use as a medicine because folk medicine used a decoction of willow bark to quell some inflammatory states . The study of this source has led to the discovery of phenolic compounds with anti-inflammatory action, such as salicin.
Traditional medicine as we know it today is the result of an instinctive medicine, of that knowledge related to the plant world that has led man to instinctively learn, over the years, to discern what is good from what is bad, what is medicine from what is poison. Man has always been very attentive to health-related knowledge, because health is what man absolutely needs. Not by chance the greatest doctors of the past were first botanists and a doctor could not be a physician if he did not know the medicines. Over the decades humanity has begun to structure this instinctive knowledge; this is how disciplines are born aimed at the study of everything that can be a source of well-being and health, disciplines such as pharmaceutical botany, phytochemistry, pharmacology and toxicology. All these areas aim at the knowledge of the source and its healthy expression. This is why pharmacognosy is a science that draws on different knowledge, even though it is not their full expression: each discipline deepens some aspects more than others; the object of study of pharmacognosy is drugs.
The knowledge of what is useful for preserving health is a complex and at the same time very important knowledge, therefore it becomes an increasingly exclusive knowledge and the prerogative of a few. When man in the past could not explain the reason why a particular source acted as a medicine, he attributed the benefit obtained to a divine and supernatural entity. This knowledge increasingly took on the nuances of a religious pseudoscience, which was limited to a knowledge of the healthy expression without wondering why. This explains why even today in some populations the figure of the doctor coincides with that of the shaman . This growing knowledge was held by a few important figures, such as priests, shamans and healers. This tradition continues today only in some populations of Asia and South America; in western countries, on the other hand, there is a clear distinction between science and religion, since we know the reasons why a given source has a specific pharmacological effect. Therefore, there is also a clear social distinction between the figure of the pharmacist and that of the priest ; the first has a scientific-sanitary knowledge, the other a religious knowledge. The figure of the shaman is still very successful today, he uses plants for therapeutic purposes, but his health practice is mediated by the gods and attributed to his precious staff. Even the figure of the pharmacist is marked by a particular symbol, the caduceus, or the stick of health. This shows that the way health is preserved is different, but the source is still the same in all populations.
The study of drugs has therefore a very ancient origin, because they have always been of health interest and not only; for example, spices, which are still used in the kitchen to flavor dishes, were used in the past, thanks to their antiseptic properties, to keep food longer. Chili peppers are widely used in South American countries, a spice with marked organoleptic characteristics but also antimicrobials. The evolution of the uses of chili pepper exemplifies how a trivial cooking spice can have a pharmacognostic relevance; the chili pepper drug, in addition to providing spiciness to the dish, favors digestion by exerting an irritant action on the mucous membranes of the stomach and stimulating gastric secretion.
