Frontiers in Alternative & Traditional Medicine

Pharmacognosy and Phytochemistry

Pharmacognosy is the study of plants or additional natural sources as a probable source of drugs. The American Society of Pharmacognosy outlines Pharmacognosy as "the study of the physical, chemical, biochemical, and biological properties of drugs, drug substances, or potential drugs or drug substances of natural source as well as the exploration for new drugs from natural sources". Pharmacognosy" was used to designate the division of medicine or commodity sciences (Warenkunde in German) which bonds with drugs in their crude, or unprepared, form. Crude drugs are the dried, unprepared material of plant, animal or mineral origin, used for medicine.

Phytochemistry is the study of phytochemicals, which are chemicals subsequent from plants. Phytochemists strive to term the structures of the huge number of secondary metabolites invent in plants, the purposes of these compounds in human and plant biology, and the biosynthesis of these compounds. Plants synthesize phytochemicals for numerous sources, including protecting themselves against insect attacks and plant diseases. The compounds invent in plants are of various kinds, but most can be grouped into four major biosynthetic classes: alkaloids, phenylpropanoids, polyketides, and terpenoids.