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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]
phytotherapy: the study of medicinal use of plant extracts; phytochemistry: the study of chemicals derived from plants (including the identification of new drug candidates derived from plant sources); zoopharmacognosy: the process by which animals self-medicate, by selecting and using plants, soils, and insects to treat and prevent disease;
The World Health Organization estimates, without reliable data, that some 80 percent of the world's population depends mainly on traditional medicine (including but not limited to plants); perhaps some two billion people are largely reliant on medicinal plants. [48] [51] The use of plant-based materials including herbal or natural health ...
A cat eating grass – an example of zoopharmacognosy. Zoopharmacognosy is a behaviour in which non-human animals self-medicate by selecting and ingesting or topically applying plants, soils and insects with medicinal properties, to prevent or reduce the harmful effects of pathogens, toxins, and even other animals.
Paraherbalism is the pseudoscientific use of extracts of plant or animal origin as supposed medicines or health-promoting agents. [1] [6] [7] Phytotherapy differs from plant-derived medicines in standard pharmacology because it does not isolate and standardize the compounds from a given plant believed to be biologically active. It relies on the ...
Human uses of plants include both practical uses, such as for food, clothing, and medicine, and symbolic uses, such as in art, mythology and literature. Materials derived from plants are collectively called plant products .
In the Latin names for plants created by Linnaeus, the word officinalis indicates that a plant was used in this way. For example, the marsh mallow has the classification Althaea officinalis, as it was traditionally used as an emollient to soothe ulcers. [2] Pharmacognosy is the study of plant sources of phytochemicals.
Both animals and plants are used to provide pleasure, through a range of activities including keeping pets, hunting, fishing, and gardening. A wide variety of animals are kept as pets , from invertebrates such as tarantulas and octopuses, insects including praying mantises , [ 52 ] reptiles such as snakes and chameleons , [ 53 ] and birds ...