Question

History and development of medicinal chemistry

Answer 1

Explanation:

The History Of Medicinal Chemistry Medicinal Chemistry

There is a long history of plants being used to treat various diseases. They figure in the records of early civilisations in Babylon, Egypt, India and China. The therapeutic properties of plants were described by the Ancient Greeks and by the Romans and are recorded in the writings of Hippocrates, Dioscorides, Pliny and Galenus. Some metals and metal salts were also used at this time. In the Middle Ages various 'Materia Medica and pharmacopeas brought together traditional uses of plants. The herbals of John Gerard (1596), John Parkinson (1640) and Nicolas Culpeper (1649) provide an insight into this widespread use of herbs. Exploration in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries led to the addition of a number of useful tropical plants to those of European origin.

The nineteenth century saw the beginnings of modern organic chemistry and consequently of medicinal chemistry. Their development is intertwined. The isolation of a number of alkaloids including morphine (1805), quinine (1823) and atropine (1834) from crude medicinal plant extracts was part of the analytical effort to standardize drug preparations and overcome fraud.