Medicine

Herbal medicine (also herbalism) is the study of pharmacognosy and the use of medicinal plants. Plants have been the basis for medical treatments through much of human history, and such traditional medicine is still widely practiced today. Modern medicine makes use of many plant-derived compounds as the basis for evidence-based pharmaceutical drugs. Although herbalism may apply modern standards of effectiveness testing to herbs and medicines derived from natural sources, few high-quality clinical trials and standards for purity or dosage exist. The scope of herbal medicine is sometimes extended to include fungal and bee products, as well as minerals, shells and certain animal parts.

Herbal medicine is also called phytomedicine or phytotherapy. Paraherbalism describes alternative and pseudoscientific practices of using unrefined plant or animal extracts as unproven medicines or health-promoting agents. Paraherbalism differs from plant-derived medicines in standard pharmacology because it does not isolate or standardize biologically active compounds, but rather relies on the belief that preserving various substances from a given source with less processing is safer or more effective – for which there is no evidence. Herbal dietary supplements most often fall under the phytotherapy category.

History

A physician preparing an elixir, from an Arabic version of Dioscorides's pharmacopoeia, 1224

Archaeological evidence indicates that the use of medicinal plants dates back to the Paleolithic age, approximately 60,000 years ago. Written evidence of herbal remedies dates back over 5,000 years to the Sumerians, who compiled lists of plants. Some ancient cultures wrote about plants and their medical uses in books called herbals. In ancient Egypt, herbs are mentioned in Egyptian medical papyri, depicted in tomb illustrations, or on rare occasions found in medical jars containing trace amounts of herbs. Among the oldest, lengthiest, and most important medical papyri of ancient Egypt, the Ebers Papyrus dates from about 1550 BC, and covers more than 700 compounds, mainly of plant origin.

Applied Microbiology: Open Access is a scholarly open access journal that deals with the study of Medical microbiology the study of the pathogenic microbes and the role of microbes in human illness, Pharmaceutical microbiology the study of microorganisms that are related to the production of antibiotics, enzymes, vitamins and vaccines, Industrial microbiology the exploitation of microbes for use in industrial processes

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