Pharmacognosy is the study of medicines derived from natural sources. The American Society of Pharmacognosy defines pharmacognosy as “the study of the physical, chemical, biochemical and biological properties of drugs, drug substances or potential drugs or drug substances of natural origin as well as the search for new drugs from natural sources.
The universal role of drugs of biological origin in the treatment of disease is exemplified by their employment in all the major systems of medicine. Pharmacognosy is a specific discipline deals with the rapid developments in the knowledge and utilization of medicinal substances of biological origin (plant, microorganism and animal products) used in human and vertenary purpose. This subject provides information about the principles and procedures used in the identification, authentication, extraction, isolation of active constituents by chromatography techniques, purification and development of herbal formulations and assay methods for the isolated constituents.
An insight into activities
The students and the faculty of the department perform organized research to isolate various active constituents from herbal drugs and estimate them. The department provides a quality practical training to UG students for developing practice to identify the drug both morphologically and microscopically.
The different fields within today’s pharmacognosy include
- Medical Ethnobotany; study of the traditional use of plants in the society.
- Ethnopharmacology; study of the bio-pharmacological evolution of traditionally used natural drugs.
- Phytotherapy; study of effect of extracts from medicinal plants.
- Phytochemistry, or natural product chemistry; a field closely related to organic chemistry, studying the chemical composition of living organisms
