Posts Tagged ‘Medicinal Plants’
Kinds Of Medicinal Plants and Applications
Each region has different kinds of medicinal plants and applications that depend to a large extent on the cultural tradition.
Many modern medicines have their origin in plants used for therapeutic purposes. Among them mention may be quinine, extracted from the bark of the cinchona tree, aspirin, from willow bark and dioxin, the foxglove.
Herbal medicine uses whole plants whose extracts contain various constituents mixed and not purified or isolated components. Ensures that the herbal medicine preparations biochemical elements, working in groups, have a greater effect than when used separately and that significantly reduces toxicity.
During the nineteenth century with the development of chemistry and physics, were isolated active principles of plants with great impact to the medical clinic. Thus were obtained the first chemically pure drugs: morphine and quinine.
Until then, the inaccuracy of the formulas plants prevented the determination of issues such as minimum active dose, the safety margin of the substance and the median lethal dose. In that sense, were increased risks of acute overdose or accidental poisoning in herbal medicine. So did the incidence of unexpected adverse reactions, because one of the many compounds present in natural preparations.
Herbal remedies are derived from combinations of herbs, flowers, leaves, bark and roots that are routinely taken as teas or tinctures, extracts in alcohol. They are also used by way of pills, capsules, ointments and compresses.
A current difficulty of herbal medicine is that many of their remedies are based on wild medicinal plants are increasingly endangered or scarce to be used by pharmaceutical companies.