✍ Scribed by Christensen, B.V.
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
the following kinds of work here summarized are actually carried out by pharmacognosists at the present time:
The collection of crude drugs and other raw materials from both living kingdoms.
The cultivation of drug, spice and oil plants.
The identification of crude drugs, spices, commercial gums, resins, paper and textile fibers, woods and other raw materials from plants and animals together with their adulterants and substitutes.
The garbling, grading, shipping and curing of crude drugs, condiments and other raw materials.
The valuation of crude drugs, spices, and other products obtained from plants and animals, involving organoleptic, physical, chemical, microchemical, microsublimation and pharmacodynamic tests, as well as histological examination.
The preservation of these raw materials of vegetable and animal origin from the ravages of insects, mites, molds, bacteria, yeasts and other organisms, as well as the influence of temperature, moisture and light.
A definition embracing all of these practices involved in the modern practice of pharmacognosy might read as follows:
Pharmacognosy is the science which treats of the history, distribution, commerce, collection, cultivation, identification, selection, valuation and preservation of crude drugs and other organic materials of vegetable and animal origin, indeed a wide field and basic to the practice of pharmacy.
Accordingly, pharmacognosy would not be synonymous with materia medica, for the latter, being the study of all medicinal materials, not only includes the crude drug phases of pharmacognosy, but in addition the mineral drugs, the refined products of crude drugs, the medicinal synthetics and preparations of, all of these. Nor would it be synonymous with pharmacology in either the broad or restricted use of the latter term, for in its broadest use pharmacology embraces every kind of inquiry into drugs and other remedial agents, while in its more restricted use it deals with the action of drugs upon living organisms.
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