Concise Encyclopedia of Herbal Drugs (Quick Memorising of the Pharmacognostic Features)

ISBN NO:- 978-93-6175-697-9

Pharmacognosy” is a Greek word, derived from pharmakon means drug, and
gnosis means knowledge. It is the study of the crude drugs produced from
natural sources such as plants, animals and minerals including their
morphological, chemical, and biological properties as well as history,
cultivation, collection, extraction, isolation, bioassay, and their standardization
for biological, chemical, biochemical, and physical properties. The objective of
the study of “pharmacognosy” is for safe use of herbal drugs including their
side effects, toxicity, drug interaction, etc thereby increasing effectiveness in
modern medicine. Like any other scientific area, since the introduction
of Pharmacognosy some 200 years ago, it has evolved over the years, and
now Pharmacognosy can be defined as the science of biogenic or naturally
derived drugs, pharmaceuticals and poisons. Various modern analytical
techniques are used to authenticate and standardization of the crude drugs. De
materia medica is a pharmacopoeia of medicinal plants written by Dioscorides
between 50 and 70 CE in which about 600 plants are placed. Keeping the
requirements of the curriculum for the students of Bachelor of Pharmacy and
Diploma in Pharmacy under Pharmacy Council of India in view, the authors of
Concise Encyclopedia of Herbal Drugs have put a small effort to bring 134
herbal drugs with their synonym, biological name, family, source, uses,
chemical constituents, chemical identification tests, adulterant, picture of the
drug and the chemical structure of one of the major constituents with this book.
Pictures are collected from search engine google. The chemical structures of the
phyto constituents are drawn using software Chemdraw version 12.0. As the
monograph of the herbal drugs too difficult to memorize so the authors concise
the monograph and along with provided a large coloured picture of the drug to
make it attractive for the students to read and memorize.
It would be grateful to the readers if they draw the attention to the deficiencies
and errors that might have remained.
We express our sincere gratitude to all who have extended their cooperation and
help in completion of this book. Hope, this book would be well accepted by the
students and teacher community.