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Biodiversity plays a vital role in maintaining human and animal health because numerous plants, animals, and fungi are used in medicine to produce vital vitamins, painkillers, antibiotics, and other medications. [1] [2] [3] Natural products have been recognized and used as medicines by ancient cultures all around the world. [4]
Homeopathic medicine is made of plants, minerals, or animal parts. [22] Oscillococcinum, a remedy purported to reduce cold and flu like symptoms, is made of duck heart and liver. [23] There is also use of insects in homeopathic medicine, such as Blatta orientalis, a type of cockroach which has been studied by homeopaths for anti-asthmatic ...
Bioprospecting (also known as biodiversity prospecting) is the exploration of natural sources for small molecules, macromolecules and biochemical and genetic information that could be developed into commercially valuable products for the agricultural, [2] [3] aquaculture, [4] [5] bioremediation, [4] [6] cosmetics, [7] [8] nanotechnology, [4] [9] or pharmaceutical [2] [10] industries.
Pharmacognosy is the study of crude drugs obtained from medicinal plants, animals, fungi, and other natural sources. [1] The American Society of Pharmacognosy defines pharmacognosy as "the study of the physical, chemical, biochemical , and biological properties of drugs, drug substances, or potential drugs or drug substances of natural origin ...
A potentially controversial method of producing biopharmaceuticals involves transgenic organisms, particularly plants and animals that have been genetically modified to produce drugs. This production is a significant risk for its investor due to production failure or scrutiny from regulatory bodies based on perceived risks and ethical issues.
[9] [10] He was the first to show that curare does not kill the animal and the recovery is complete if the animal's respiration is maintained artificially. In 1825, Charles Waterton described a classical experiment in which he kept a curarized female donkey alive by artificial respiration with a bellows through a tracheostomy . [ 11 ]
In modern medicine, around a quarter [a] of the drugs prescribed to patients are derived from medicinal plants, and they are rigorously tested. [48] [51] In other systems of medicine, medicinal plants may constitute the majority of what are often informal attempted treatments, not tested scientifically. [52]
Crude drugs are drugs of plant, animal and microbial origin [clarification needed] that contain natural substances that have undergone only the processes of collection and drying. [ dubious – discuss ] The term natural substances refers to those substances found in nature that have not had man-made changes made in their molecular structure.