ASPECTS REGARDING THE EXPLOITATION OF MEDICINAL AND AROMATIC PLANTS

  • Leon Sorin Muntean University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, 3-5 Manastur St., 400372 Cluj-Napoca
  • Leon Muntean University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, 3-5 Manastur St., 400372 Cluj-Napoca
  • Sorin Muntean University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, 3-5 Manastur St., 400372 Cluj-Napoca
Keywords: Medicinal and aromatic plants, history, exploatation

Abstract

The role of medicinal and aromatic plants in prophylactic and curative
medicine is long known, being increasingly appreciated worldwide and in our
country. Man used natural resources in the middle of which he lived, from the
beginning of its existence. He found in the vegetal and animal world the livelihood,
food, clothes and solutions to remedy the organic suffering. Gradually, he managed
to identify plants that were beneficial to his health, for healing wounds and curing
various diseases. From traditional medicine to modern medicine, the practice of
healing human suffering could not part with medicinal plants, which are an
invaluable pool of active principles, bundled into the immensity of flowers, leaves,
roots etc. Human civilizations that have succeeded each brought their contribution
to the knowledge and use of a growing number of medicinal plants. Many scholars
of ancient times until nowadays have also recorded in their writings the medicinal
qualities and the proper way of use of many plants. At the same time with the
development of chemistry it also became possible the knowledge of active
substances (active principles) in plants. Until a century ago, about three quarters of
pharmaceutical preparations were made from vegetable products, then synthetic
medicines have come to hold more weight and medicinal plants were considered by
some ʺtherapeutic fossilsʺ. The interest in therapy with pharmaceutical products
derived from plants is growing steadily from the second half of the last century,
due to the fact that they are more compatible with the human body, being closer in
metabolic terms and more easily tolerated than synthetic medicines. Current
medical trends are grafted increasingly on the use of phytotherapy (treatment with
pharmaceutical products derived from plants), limiting the explosive use of
synthetic drugs to the strictly necessary. Phytotherapy is a real possibility in
modern therapeutics alongside chemotherapy, physiotherapy and balneology,
electrotherapy, food hygiene etc.

Published
2017-02-01