Pharmacognosy

This textbook provides study material for the subject of pharmacognosy, a specific pharmaceutical discipline that studies medicinal products and excipients of natural origin. It offers a comprehensive overview of natural medicines, focusing on the origin of crude drugs, their active substances, effects, and therapeutic uses. In addition to currently used drugs, it also includes those that have played a significant role in the history of natural medicine, are now sources for the isolation of substances, or have been replaced in therapy by more effective medicines. The included drugs are organised mostly according to the biogenetic origin of their main active substances, and partly according to their effects and uses. The latest edition of the Czech Pharmacopoeia 2009 and its supplements, as well as changes in the phylogenetic classification of plants, have been taken into account.