Herbal medicinal herbs

In the ancient library of the world - the library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal in Nineveh (circa 660 BC) on clay tablets written in cuneiform, also contains extensive information about medicinal plants. Along with their description, diseases are indicated in which medicinal plants are used , and in what form they should be used.

In medicine in ancient China, you can find references to many human diseases. A collection of medicinal plants and various products of Li Shih-chzhen (1522 - 1596) "Fundamentals of Pharmacognosy" is widely known, in which a detailed description of numerous medicinal products from medicinal plants is given.

Doctors of Ancient India believed that most diseases result from spoilage of "body juices", therefore, for the treatment recommended bleeding, vomitive and other remedies, including a large group of medicines of plant origin . Many Indian plants (especially spices) were imported into the Roman Empire. Some of the Indian plants have long entered the European medical practice - chilibukha, rauwolfia, etc. "If you look around the eyes of a doctor looking for medicines, you can say that we live in a world of medicines ...", reads one of the precepts of ancient Buddhist medicine .

An outstanding representative of the Arab Medical School, Avicenna, whose millennium in 1980 marked the entire progressive world, wrote the "Canon of Medical Science" in five volumes. It was translated into many languages ​​of the world and in the Middle Ages was a reference book for Arab and European doctors. In his book Avicenna described about 900 species of medicinal plants .

Scientific medicine begins its development since the time of the famous doctor of Ancient Greece Hippocrates (460 - 377 BC). In his medical activity, he widely used numerous herbal preparations . A number of them were, apparently, borrowed from Egyptian medicine. Hippocrates described 236 species of plants recognized as ancient medicines by Greek medicine .

The first edition of the medical encyclopaedia, or medical manual , belongs to the ancient doctor Avlu Cornelia Celsus (the end of the 1st century BC - the beginning of the 1st century AD). In eight books on medicine, he summarized all the medical literature of his time from the Yajur Veda of the ancient Indian doctor Sushruta to the works of Asklepiad. In this work a lot of space is given to medicinal plants . It describes the methods used to treat various diseases; Recommendations on the use of certain plants are given. In the works of Celsus, you can find not only botanical descriptions of plantain, poppy, cumin, wine berries, plant gums , but also practical ways of their medical use .

In the middle of the first century AD, the doctor of the Roman army in Asia, Dioscorides, made up the most extensive herbalist , including most of the medicinal plants known by that time, about 500 species. This book was not only herbalist, but also a kind of collection of information on the pharmacy and pharmacology of that time.

The author of the new theory of medicinal plants was the famous physician and pharmacist of Ancient Rome Claudius Galen (129 - 201 AD). He wrote about 200 works on medicine. The most important are his two herbalists, who played a big role in medicine. They were repeatedly translated into Arabic, Syriac, Persian and Hebrew. The author was one of the initiators of obtaining preparations from vegetable raw materials - tinctures, extracts and other medicinal forms . And now they are called galenic preparations and have not lost their great practical importance in medicine.

In the IV century appeared the most famous of the Latin herbalists , compiled by Apuleius. Travnik was so popular that when he invented printing, he was the first among the medical books. In the 9th and 10th centuries the first translations of the herbalists Dioscorides, Galenas and Apuleius appear in European languages ​​- Italian, French, English, German. Original European herbalists appear later - in the XV and XVI centuries, and the information cited therein is largely borrowed from Greek and Latin herbalists.

The present Black Sea coast was famous for its medicinal herbs. Hippocrates, after visiting these places, wrote about the wonderful medicines from the Scythian root (rhubarb), the Pontic absintia (wormwood), the rooted root (aira) , etc. Ancient Greek philosopher and naturalist Theophrastus (372 - 287 BC) repeatedly In his works he mentions Scythian grass , which was widely used to treat wounds.

In ancient Russia, the use of plants for medical purposes was reflected in the remarkable monument of ancient Russian culture "Izbornik Svyatoslav" (1073), compiled for the Grand Duke Svyatoslav Yaroslavovich by some deacon Gregory. In this manuscript a lot of space is given to the description of the plants used at that time to obtain medicines.

With the adoption of Christianity, the spread of writing and literacy in Russia, there are also the first medical books , the so-called herbalists, medical institutions. A copy of the first Russian medical manual "Mazi" , which was compiled by the granddaughter of Vladimir Monomakh - Evpraksiya, is preserved. Of particular interest to physicians is the fourth chapter of this work, devoted to the treatment of "external" diseases.

For the treatment of internal and external diseases in Russia, the application of plants and their intake were readily used (for example, cabbage, flax, mustard, hazel, or drank their juices). Along with herbal medicines, the Russian people for a long time used in medical practice honey. It was prescribed in its pure form and in mixtures with broth of herbs , with oil, vinegar, lard, beer, baked onions and many other substances.

In addition to herbalists and medical institutions, so-called "helicopters" with numerous descriptions of plants and their medicinal products have spread . "This book, a veritable cool helicopter or a medical aid to Nicholas the Miracle-Worker" ("Cool Vertograd") is one of the fairly common ancient Russian medical institutions . It is a translation of a very popular Western European medical encyclopaedia XV-XVI centuries. The text of the helicopters changed over time. They described rational empirical remedies from herbs, trees and minerals .

Great interest in the study of domestic medicines was manifested in Russia after the reforms of Peter I, who paid much attention to the collection of medicinal herbs . By his order, state pharmacies and so-called "apothecary gardens" (1713) were created. One of them, the St. Petersburg Apothecary Garden, later turned into a botanical garden, now transformed into the Botanical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Russian Federation .

Collection and application of medicinal herbs were practiced throughout Russia , including in Siberia, Ukraine, and Belarus. Of course, there could be no talk about any systematic study of the medicinal flora of Russia , of course. Single pharmacochemical laboratories and plantations of medicinal plants were organized .

Only much later the study of Russia 's flora and plant resources is being developed . Prominent Russian scientist, academician P. S. Pallas wrote: "Many home remedies, by a simple people or by wild unenlightened people, are an open case, in the hands of a doctor they eventually become saving means" . With the deepening of medical knowledge, the ideas about domestic medicinal plants, their collection, cultivation and practical application are expanding. A number of scientific expeditions to various parts of Russia are conducted, books with a description of a large number of medicinal plants growing in different regions of the country are published.

With the opening of the Medical Surgical Academy in St. Petersburg (1798), it became a center for the study of medicinal plants . Although the end of the XIX and the beginning of the XX century were marked by significant successes in the field of synthesis of new chemical preparations, herbal medicines have not lost their significance . Nevertheless, the nineteenth century is already marked by a certain decline in interest in the medicinal plants of the native flora.

Only with the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution have radical changes in all aspects of the life of our people. They touched on the use of medicinal plants. It was decided to create a pharmaceutical industry on its own raw materials, to strengthen and develop the plant's raw materials base , taking into account the needs of the pharmacy network and exports.

In 1919, work was begun on combining the procurement of medicinal raw materials and transferring them to the state. In subsequent years, special legislative acts were adopted on the collection and culture of medicinal plants. In 1930, specialized experimental stations of medicinal plants were created in different geographical regions of the country (in Lubny, Mogilev, Olgin, Bitza, Sukhumi, etc.). Since 1931, all of them have come under the jurisdiction of the newly organized All-Union Research Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (VILAR, since 1969 - VILR) , in which all research and research and production activities in the field of medicinal plant growing have been concentrated . The Institute has also become a center of botanical resources and chemical research.

A great importance is attached to the study of the centuries-old experience of the people in the use of plants for medical purposes in our country. In addition to VILR, a number of other research institutes, departments of medical and pharmaceutical universities, universities and pedagogical institutes are engaged in this and the search for new medicinal preparations from plants. Успешное изучение лекарственных растений как источника биологически активных веществ позволило получить и широко внедрить в медицинскую практику целый ряд новых высокоэффективных лечебных препаратов.