BI266 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Digitalis Lanata, Atropa Belladonna, Asclepiadoideae
Document Summary
Plants were not only source of food for early peoples, but only source of medicine. Ebers papyrus (egypt 1550 b. c. ) has over 700 medicinal formulas of important plants. Several prominent people contributed to pharmacology had great advancement in biological and medical knowledge. Pharmacology = the study of drugs, including their composition, uses, and effects. Gave description of medicinal plants botanical garden at athens. De materia medica - five volume description of medicinal plants. Copied by monks for centuries to produce herbals . Popularity soared in mid 1400s as the printing press led to mass production of herbals . Lists of useful plants indexed by medical applications. Believed plants were placed on earth by god for human use. Consequently god provided signs (plant structures) that indicated ailment that the plant was to be used for, gave rise to the doctrine of signatures.
