Practical Pharmacognosy

In the past, traditional medicinal knowledge prevalent in the form of holy books, incantations, folklores, Materia Medica and other historical literature defined the preliminary guidelines for the authorization of plant derived natural medicines. Now a day we see, cultivation, collection, authentication, identification, quality assessment, biochemical, biological and molecular studies of natural drugs are being considered as the main aspects of Pharmacognosy. As a result, the modern curriculum of pharmaceutical sciences has undergone substantial changes and Pharmacognosy has become one of the core streams of pharmaceutical research and education. Moreover, most of the present day's drug discoveries have been increasingly adopting traditional medicine based approaches to increase results and to address safety concerns. Thus, Clinical Pharmacognosy, Analytical Pharmacognosy and Industrial Pharmacognosy have been established as the specialized and professional offshoots of Pharmacognosy to meet the contemporary advancements in the field of Pharmacognosy. There is a marked increase in research and development of natural medicines worldwide. Practical Pharmacognosy is intended to provide the vast knowledge in medicinal substances or drug molecules, which are obtained from natural origin. It also emphasizes on isolation and structure elucidation of biologically active principles from natural resources worldwide. It covers a wide range of multidimensional topics in natural product drug discovery, medicinal plant research and pharmaceutical products.This book will be of interest for both educators, research scholars, entrepreneurs and scientists of the value added products and their resources pertaining to plants.