Medicinal plants

History

The earliest written reports on medicinal plants come from China (the 27th century BC) and Egypt (the 16th century BC), when medical records for the use of plants were kept. In ancient writings, Hippocrates (460–337 BC) states 236 species of plants. The masterpiece of the ancient period is the work of Pedanius Dioscorides (AD 60) called De Materia Medica where he mentioned 600 species of herbs. At the same time, Pliny the Elder wrote his work Historia naturalis, dealing with the use of herbs. In the 2nd century BC Claudius Galenus developed galenic formulation which deals with the principles of preparing and compounding medicines in order to optimize their absorption. In the Middle Ages there was a great development of interest in medicinal herbs. Herbariums and herb books were assembled (Jan Černý – 1517, P. O. Mattioli (1562). In the 16th century Paracelsus pronounced a groundbreaking idea that effective was not a plant but the substances that it contained. The treatment took place mainly in monasteries where hospitals and pharmacies were founded. Patients were treated through medicinal plants (phytotherapy) there. At the same time, monastery gardens were founded, consisting of a utility part (hortus) and an herb part (herbarium). The foundations of today‘s pharmacy, or the scientific field dealing with active substances that have a physiological influence on the organism, were laid.