A survey of plant-derived pure compounds used as drugs in countries hosting WHO-Traditional Medicine Centers indicated that, of 122 compounds identified, 80% were used for the same or related ethnomedical purposes and were derived from only 94 plant species. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimated in 1985 that approximately 65% of the population of the world predominately relied on plant-derived traditional medicines for their primary health care, while plant products also play an important, though more indirect role in the health care systems of the remaining population who mainly reside in developed countries. Plant-based systems continue to play an essential role in healthcare, and their use by different cultures has been extensively documented. A comprehensive review of the history of medicine may be found on the website of the National Library of Medicine (NLM), United States National Institutes of Health (NIH), at 2 The Role of Traditional Medicine and Plants in Drug Discovery The Arabs, however, preserved much of the Greco-Roman expertise during the Dark and Middle Ages (5 th to 12 th centuries), and expanded it to include the use of their own resources, together with Chinese and Indian herbs unknown to the Greco-Roman world. Dioscorides, a Greek physician (100 CE), accurately recorded the collection, storage, and use of medicinal herbs during his travels with Roman armies throughout the then “known world”, whilst Galen (130–200 CE.), a practitioner and teacher of pharmacy and medicine in Rome, is well known for his complex prescriptions and formulae used in compounding drugs. The Greeks and Romans contributed substantially to the rational development of the use of herbal drugs in the ancient Western world. (Charaka Sushruta and Samhitas with 341 and 516 drugs respectively). Likewise, documentation of the Indian Ayurvedic system dates from before 1000 B. (Wu Shi Er Bing Fang, containing 52 prescriptions), followed by works such as the Shennong Herbal (~100 B. The Chinese Materia Medica has been extensively documented over the centuries, with the first record dating from about 1100 B. Egyptian medicine dates from about 2900 B.C., but the best known record is the “Ebers Papyrus” dating from 1500 BCE, documenting over 700 drugs, mostly of plant origin. These include oils of Cedrus species (cedar) and Cupressus sempevirens (cypress), Glycyrrhiza glabra (licorice), Commiphora species (myrrh), and Papaver somniferum (poppy juice), all of which are still used today for the treatment of ailments ranging from coughs and colds to parasitic infections and inflammation. Plants, in particular, have formed the basis of sophisticated traditional medicine systems, with the earliest records, dating from around 2600 BCE, documenting the uses of approximately 1000 plant-derived substances in Mesopotamia.
Throughout the ages humans have relied on Nature to cater for their basic needs, not the least of which are medicines for the treatment of a wide spectrum of diseases.