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Synopsis The present work traces the journey followed, giving a brief account of the contribution of all the major civilizations to the development of medicinal systems. The book further speaks about several prominent personalities of each medicinal system who helped in shaping the system. Each civilization recorded their medicinal knowledge in some or the other form that are called the ‘Herbs’. This work gives a compilation of herbals from the Mesopotamians until Renaissance period. Thus provides an insight into medicinal practices of each period. These herbals were the source of medicinal knowledge and were relied upon by medicinal practitioners until the nineteenth century. Nineteenth century led to the discovery of substances such a s alkaloids, glycosides, resins, volatile oils, gums, tannins, etc collectively called secondary metabolites. A small fraction of these constituents have been isolated and explored for their medicinal properties. Secondary metabolites is very vast topic hence, selected categories of secondary metabolites have been discussed. This book also discusses in brief, their biosynthesis along with their role as pharmaceuticals.

Though Allopathy remains as the mainstream in health care, herbal medicines have been main source of primary healthcare in many nations. These herbal medicines are the synthesis of therapeutic experiences of generations of practicing physicians of indigenous systems of medicine for over hundreds of years. Each country, each region, each tribe has their own traditional health care system. The practice, the belief and the basis of a few traditional systems, prevalent in each continent are discussed providing a brief insight into these traditional systems of medicine. This book also includes monograph of 120 plants. Scientific data along with traditional uses are included in these monographs to highlight their usage as mainstream pharmaceuticals. In order to facilitate better understanding, a glossary of various terms used throughout this work has been provided in the end.