Pharma Talk #3

Have you ever thought how drug is prepared? Or, how it is delivered in such huge quantity from where it’s transported in the industry and eventually, is supplied to the people? Have you ever thought of that process by which drugs are prepared? Not that usual process which we used to see in pharmaceutical industries, rather, that process which is concerned over findings and cultivation of drugs. Have you ever thought that? Have you ever thought what ‘medicinally active substance’ might be? Have you ever thought why we do not use drugs in raw forms? To know the answers of these questions, we should understand the concept of ‘PHARMACOGNOSY’, which is one of the most interesting subjects in this course. This post is basically for those who are newly introduced to the pharmacy and this concept is pretty fundamental, in terms of providing all sorts of comfort, I am trying to introduce it in simple way. To simplify the matter, 

‘PHARMACOGNOSY’ mostly deals with the overall development of drugs, it may be physical features or chemical features, habitats and of course, sources etc. Drugs are obtained from plant sources, and few are from animal sources. Whenever drug is collected, there are certain rules to be followed, and amongst them, geographical diversity and morphological characters are strictly maintained, as numbers of drugs are available which are quite similar in almost every aspects but vary in pharmacological actions. They may be from either same species or different species. ‘PHARMACOGNOSY’ almost acts as a ‘WIKIPEDIA OF DRUGS’ because it holds the records of traditional drugs and modern drugs. Besides, it helps us to understand concepts of ‘ORGANIZED DRUGS’, ‘UNORGANIZED DRUGS’,‘TYPES OF DRUGS’ like drug extracts, powders, exudations etc. and eventually, ‘CLASSIFICATION OF DRUGS’ like glycosides, alkaloids, resinous drugs etc and 'ACTIVE INGREDIENTS OR MEDICINALLY ACTIVE SUBSTANCES' of drugs and their 'CHARACTERISTICS'. Here, you can learn about different structures of chemicals which, later, will be crucial as ‘DRUG DEVELOPMENTS AND RESEARCHES’ are involved as the course progresses.  Today, several plants are cultivated for the purpose of optimize more amounts of drugs and improve their quality. It has become possible because of those guidelines written in it. However, ‘PHARMACOGNOSY’ is not an individual approach, rather, it’s a combination of several approaches such as Chinese traditional medicines books, traditional Indian medicine books like CHARAK SAMHITA, SUSRUTA SAMHITA etc and European medicine books. That’s why, from my point of view, it’s very interesting and basic concept in which you should spend more time in terms of AMUSE yourself by searching more questions than basics.