ABSTRACT
Ethnobotany studies the relationships between people and plants and includes various aspects of how plants are used as food, cosmetics, textiles, in gardening, and as medicine. In contrast, ethnopharmacology studies the pharmacological aspects of a given culture’s medical treatments and their social appeal, concentrating especially on the bio-evaluation of the effectiveness of traditional medicines. Ethnopharmacology is related to ethnobotany in part because many pharmaceuticals come from plants; however, ethnopharmacological research also includes drugs and medicines from animal, fungal, microbial, and mineral sources. Ethnomedicine is, of course, closely related to both fields, but is based on ancient written sources along with knowledge and practices that have been handed down orally over the centuries. It is also akin to traditional medicine or medical anthropology in that it studies the perception of and context in which traditional medicines are used. For its part, ethnopharmacy is a broad interdisciplinary science focusing on the perception, use, and management of pharmaceuticals in a specific society. Finally, pharmacognosy is the study of medicines derived from natural sources or “the study of the physical, chemical, biochemical and biological properties of drugs, drug substances
Departament de Farmacologia, Facultat de Farmacia, Universitat de Valencia. Av. Vicent Andrés Estellés s/n. 46100 Burjassot, Valencia, Spain. E-mail: riosjl@uv.es
or potential drugs or drug substances of natural origin as well as the search for new drugs from natural sources” (web 1) while phytotherapy is the study of the use of extracts of natural origin as medicines or health-promoting agents, known as phytomedicines, and their clinical use in phytotherapy or herbal medicine (Heinrich et al. 2004).
