Economic Aspects of Exploitation of Medicinal Plants

摘要

Higher plants have been used as a source of drugs by mankind for several thousand years. In fact, ancient man was totally dependent on green plants for his day-to-day needs of medicaments. With the development of modern medicine, synthetic drugs and antibiotics, the importance of plants as raw material for drugs decreased considerably. However, plants were used as a source of some of the most important drugs, even in the modern system of medicine. With the advancement of synthetic organic chemistry most of the active constituents of plants used in medicine were synthesised. At one time it was thought that ultimately all the plant drugs would be obtained from synthetic sources. However, in spite of phenomenal development in the development of new drugs from synthetic sources and the appearance of antibiotics as major therapeutic agents, plants continue to provide basic raw materials for some of the most important drugs.