Medicinal Plant

A medicinal plant is a Plante of which one of the bodies, for example the Feuille or the bark has healing virtues, and sometimes poisons according to its proportioning. With the the Middle Ages, one spoke about simple .

In France, There exists a official definition of the medicinal plants : those registered with the Pharmacopeia. According to the Public health code, the pharmacopeia is the nomenclature of the Drogue S, of the Médicament S simple and made up, of the officinal articles… There exists a pharmacopeia in each country and also at the European level. The medicinal plants registered with the pharmacopeia are regarded as Médicament S. Their sale is exclusively reserved to the pharmacists and to the herbalists, except for 34 of them which are on sale free by way of derogation (see Liste of the plants medicinal on sale free), and which often corresponds to the aromatic plants used in the culinary preparations.

The Phytothérapie is the treatment (parallel or traditional Médecine) by the plants, i.e. by consumption or the use in external way, of products prepared starting from plants, without passing by a stage of selection of the molecules; one thus does not consume only the Active ingredient, but all that contains the plant. Note: not to confuse with the Phytopharmacology which indicates the whole of the substances used to treat the plants: Pesticide S, Fungicidal S, Weedkiller S, Insecticidal S…

Medicinal properties of the plants

For a long time one knows the healing virtues or on the contrary the toxicity of the plants: thus the flax was already cultivated in -4000, and that the conium was used as means of execution in Perse and in Greece (thus died the famous philosopher Socrate in 399 av. J. - C.).

Today, beside the Drug S manufactured only by chemical synthesis, others are obtained by chemical treatment of natural substances, Végétal are generally or Animal be, but also of the remedies purely Nature ls which are seldom of animal origin (like the Miel) or Minéral are (as the medicinal Tourbe) but which comes almost exclusively from Plante S. Among those, however, only some are medicinal and the effective therapeutic substance, moreover, is not placed that in a certain determined body, that one picking then for this purpose. It very seldom sometimes happens to use the whole plant.

One indicates under the name of drug the product of the preparation of the gathered vegetable part.

Principal curative substances of the medicinal plants

The plants synthesize the elements of the ground and the atmosphere which they absorb by the roots and the sheets: the Water, the carbon dioxide and mineral and inorganic matters. The basic process is the photosynthetic assimilation of the Carbonic gas, called Photosynthèse simply. The first products of photosynthesis are substances with low Molécularité called primary metabolites: saccharides (Sugars), then fatty-acids, amino-acid . Then the metabolites are produced specialized. Some have therapeutic virtues.

Among the Metabolite S primary educations, the Saccharide S enter the preparation of the Comprimé S, are used as a basis for the Mucilage S. Certains amino-acids are not produced by the human organism to which they are however essential and must thus be introduced. The Métabolite S containing of the Iode ensure the good performance of the Thyroid gland. The most composed, like the Insulin, form the base of the Hormone S as of the most important Antibiotique S. are the Protéine S.

Among the metabolites specialized, the principal ones are:

  • the Flavonoïde S, the Rutine, which reinforce the walls of the blood capillary ,
  • the terpenic bodies (derivatives of the Terpène, among which the Menthol, the Camphre, etc). To note that the terpenic bodies form the base of the Stéroïde S which one finds in many Vitamine S,
  • the bitter principles allowing the digestion of the fat contents,
  • saponins ( sapo = Savon) are used like expectorants and Diurétique S,
  • the Alcaloïde S for many therapeutic purposes but which can be also Poison S mortals.

One could prolong the enumeration: other metabolites specialized act against the Allergie S, the Hypertension, the infectious illness and form even the base of contraceptive products.

Related articles

External bonds

  • Classification of plants according to their properties

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