药学英语第一篇原文.doc

Special Articles for Pharmacognosy Pharmacognosy , which literally means a knowledge of drugs or pharmaceuticals, has been a part of the healing arts and sciences since mankind first began to treat illnesses. It has developed from ancient civilizations that used parts of plants and animals to concoct various potions to eliminate pain, control suffering, and counteract disease. Pharmacognosy has risen from the mysterious incantations of voodoo tribes and has survived the unwritten secret recipes of medicine men. It has progressed from an era of empiricism to the present age of specific therapeutic agents. Today, pharmacognosy is a education. A number of the drugs used by the ancients are still employed in much the same manner by today’s medical practitioners. Although it is true that extraction, separation, isolation, and identification of the component constituents of plant and animal drugs have occurred in relatively resent years, nevertheless the purpose for which many of these medicinal substances are employed today barallels closely the use for they were intended by our predecessors in the study of pharmacy and medicine. Because of the interest it engenders in many of the scientists of today, pharmacognosy is a respected discipline that has no counterpart in the other professions. Perhaps because the lay public has heard little about the term pharmacognosy, there is a lack of recognition and, further, a lack of association of the term with the specific subject matter it represents. However, an intuitive curiosity is inherent in the average person who reads or hears of opium, morphine, foxglove, insulin, reserpine, thyroid, penicillin, blood plasma, polio vaccine, and even the much maligned castor oil! During the past few years, as a result of the intense concern with all aspects of ecology, there has been a renewed interest in so-called “natural” foods and drugs. The availability of an extremely wide variety of these products, ranging from fenugreek tea to gi