Page:An introduction to pharmacognosy (1905).djvu/13

 INTRODUCTION TO PHARMACOGNOSY.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION.

Pharmacognosy is the study of drugs in their crude condition. It is one of the branches of Pharmacology which in its broad sense consists of the study of remedial agents, or Materia Medica. Pharmacology includes Pharmacognosy, the study of drugs in their crude condition; Pharmacy, the preparation of drugs for the use of the medical practitioner; and Pharmacodynamics, the physiological action of drugs on living organisms. This latter branch is sometimes termed Pharmacology, but the word is then used in a narrow sense only.

Thus the study of Pharmacognosy would include the knowledge of drugs with reference to botany and chemistry, if of vegetable origin, or of their zoology and chemistry if derived from the animal kingdom. Substances derived by chemical manufacture, such as the simple salts, acids and alkalis, are not usually included in the study of Pharmacognosy. The substances usually coming within the domain of Pharmacognosy are of organic nature. The study of plant drugs from the pharmacognostical standpoint would include the study of the habitat and general character of the plant from which the drug is derived, its place in the botanical system, the organ or