My suggested reasons:

- People use plants and plant extracts to self-medicate. A pharmacist should know the common remedies and how they interact with other medicines, both natural and man-made.

-Many medicines are based on natural products- useful to know the history.

-Many compounds discovered as natural products are used to "inspire" new compounds that become medicines as the medicinal chemists tweak the structure, functional groups, as they study the structure-activity- relationship to improve specificity and activity.. The final product may not look like the original natural product but the natural product pointed the direction to the final compound. Again, may be useful to understand.

Agree with Jack Silver,

The role of Pharmacist is to understand the disease and treat with best available option (no matter whether it is synthetic or natural medicine).

Generally Herbs are also best source of novel medicines, thus its necessary to understand the medicinal purposes of herbs.

As a community pharmacist, he must know the house-hold remedies for simple diseases, which are very well elaborated in Pharmacognosy.

To know plant based medicines, their mechanism, active molecules, possible drug interactions, possible toxic reactions..

Basically pharmacognosy is a subject that actually refers to Botany. In the view of modern pharmacy syllabus many universities skip it. In Asia, traditional and alternative medicines are highly used and practised as ayurved, herbal and unani along with conventional medicines and therapy. My suggestion is to take considerations how much need of pharmacognosy in that region at the time of designing syllabus of pharmacy.

I disagree with Arjyabrata Sarker. Current Pharmacognosy study concerns to much more other subjects than Botany! Pharmacognosy skills requer knowledge about Botany, Chemistry (a lot!), Pharmacology and a little bit of Antropology, beside others. I my opinion, Pharmacognosy is the basis of Pharmaceutical Sciences.

Also, it is always good to remember that Pharmacognosy absolutely did not refer only to plant material.

we can rationale the success of natural products research in providing new drugs we can draw lines of evidence from chemical informatics and chemical ecology. Plenty of innovative strategies for natural products drug discovery and evaluation of botanical medicines can be projected, which is now new trend, world is coming back to olden days.

Pharmacy study all kind of drugs: natural, hemi and synthetic ways. Nowadays, many persons use herbs like first option in they treatment on automedication. For that reason is important that pharmacy students understand all about correct use, adverse reactions and interactions herb-drugs and herbs - food.

Pharmacognosy study herbs like drugs, adverse reactions and interactions; for that reasons pharmacognosy is an important course for pharmacy students.

Pharmacognosy course could be named natural products course and contents include the use and interactions of herbal products, marine products and other natural products if any. Topics in complementary and alternative medicine could be included.

Folk medicine plays part of the culture of many of people in the middle east and other area of the world, and it is important to optimize and rationalize the use of herbal drugs for example. The pharmacists role is very important in this regard.

Disagree with Arjyabrata Sarker. Pharmacognosy is not just the study of botanical aspects of plants but it actually is the study of medicinal aspects of various parts of plants and other natural products in their crude forms. It is the fundamental element of pharmaceutical sciences. Actually, it is the cause of origin of various branches of pharmaceutical sciences like pharmacology, medicinal chemistry, pharmaceutics etc as various plant parts, in their crude forms, were the only source of medical treatment in earlier times. So, it can be said that pharmacognosy is the oldest branch of pharmacy which has already played crucial role in the further emergence and development of other branches.

Complete understanding of medicinal plants involves a number of disciplines like commerce, botany, horticulture, chemistry, enzymology, genetics, quality control and pharmacology etc. Pharmacognosy is not anyone of these itself but it is a combination of all such disciplines for better understanding and utilization of medicinal plants.

The increasing role of natural products in drug discovery and development further signifies the scope of pharmacognosy. The importance of pharmacognosy can not be ignored, however, it may be interpreted that pharmacognosy has been a constantly developing discipline of pharmacy and there is a huge scope of further development.

Because Pharmacognosy is the MOTHER of all branches.

Whether we like it or not, Pharmacognosy is not a subject of the past, but it has evolved and developed over the years to adapt itself with the changing environment, and is now fit to meet the challenges of the present and the future of drug discovery and development. Thus, the importance of Pharmacognosy in Pharmacy cannot be overemphasized. Pharmacognosy will remain to be a significant and an essential contributor to the knowledge and understanding of drugs and therapies, and thus should be an integral part of any meaningful academic Pharmacy programs world over.

Article Pharmacognosy in modern pharmacy curricula

Pharmacognosy is the mother of most pharmaceutical and medical sciences. It has greatly evolved through numerous stages. It's relevance in pharmacy curriculum can never be over emphasized. It is broader than what Mr A. Sarker said.

One approach of knowing the importance of Pharmacognosy in Pharmacy is to check the root word of Pharmacognosy. It is derived from two Greek words: 'pharmakon' meaning 'drug' and 'gignosko' meaning 'knowledge of'. So, Pharmacognosy simply means knowledge of drugs. This is basically what Pharmacy is all about. What was known as drug in those days were those natural products either from plants, animals or minerals used to prevent or treat disease conditions. Pharmacognosy deals with all these: studying their macroscopic and microscopic properties, their chemistry, origin, separations, purification, cultivation, isolation of active principles, activity directed analysis, traditional medicines, herbal therapy, drug developments etc. etc. etc. Pharmacognosy is a basic component in the training of pharmacists. It is the basic foundation of the course, as all pharmacists will attest to. It gives understanding of origin of drugs, its properties and nature. It is the mother of other courses in pharmacy and even medical sciences.

Pharmacognosy is the basic science . It is very important to move to applied area of this science , we have to increase our research area about standardization of herbal products, phytotherapy not to be restricted to basic area

Pharmacognosy is the only source to identify dried plant specimens. So it is needed to tech to identify a genuine drug.

It would be helpfull if it is with modern isolation techniques and SAR at isolated compounds

Pharmacognosy literally means knowledge of crude drug (unprocessed drug) derived from natural products, which include; plants,animals,marine etc.

Pharmacognosy now encompasses almost all branches of science which deals with the study of crude drug such as Botany,Chemistry ,Biochemistry ,Microbiology, Genetics, Pharmacology, Molecular biology, Biotechnology, Bioinformatics, Bio-physics,Conservation Biology, Ecology

Thanks to Dr S. Vasu for his descriptive comment

Current interest and use of natural products suggests the need for pharmacognosy to be a required subject in any Pharmacy curriculum. We used to refer to the course as "Weeds and Seeds". Although a lot of the naturally derived products I learned about (animal insulins and thyroid extracts) are no longer used in the US, thousands of natural plant products and/or their man-made derivatives have yet to be studied.

Thanks to ALL of the previous contributors for providing well thought out arguments in favor of teaching pharmacognosy to pharmacy students. I, too, agree that it is a very important topic and am glad that it is making an "academic comeback"!! However, I would like to present a slightly differing view/answer to the posed question. As one who received his PharmD degree 40 years ago this year and has been involving in academia ever since, I have witnessed many significant changes. Currently, as of 2000 in the US, "clinical pharmacy" has been the driving force in the profession (as noted, for example, by the number of FTEs in academic pharmacy departments versus FTEs in academic pharmaceutical science or medicinal chemistry departments). While we may agree or disagree on whether this trend is in the best interests of pharmacy, we cannot deny its existence. HENCE, the basis for my "contrary" argument. Given that the current (and for the foreseeable future) focus of pharmacy education is on clinical practice and given that the current curriculum for pharmacy students is quite heavy, without a lot (in many cases "any") room to ADD new courses, THEN it is not logical or rational to impose the teaching of pharmacognosy to ALL pharmacy students. It certainly could be an excellent elective course and may even be required for some, particularly graduate pharmacy students, who intent to do research with natural products in order to identify and or develop new drugs. However, given the current overloaded status of the pharmacy curriculum, the decided trend towards clinical pharmacy practice, and the relatively low probability that most pharmacy graduates will ever use gained knowledge of pharmacognosy in their clinical practices, I would NOT support teaching this topic to ALL pharmacy students (as it was, for example, in the past).

Sincerely and with love of pharmacy and respect for all of my colleagues,

Lou

Dear Colleagues,

Dear Colleagues,

Pharmacognosy as a course should be one of the fundamental contents of Pharmacy curriculum in view of its meaning and the content of the course. Some of the orthodox medicines currently in use for the prevention and treatment of diseases originate from plants or animals. For example digoxin, a glycoside used in congestive heart failure is from leaves of Digitalis lanata. Quinine, an antimalarial and quinidine an antiarrythmia are alkaloids found in cinchona bark. Currently, the need of the populace for health and dietary adequacy has resulted in the use of Nutraceutical supplement either as complementary or alternatives without regards to issues of medicine dose, duration, frequency, route of administration adverse drug reactions, drug-drug, drug-food, drug-disease and drug-physiological state interactions.

Pharmacy students should be equipped with the necessary skills needed for them to discharge their responsibilities as experts on drug and drug-related issues on graduation. Hence the teaching of pharmacognosy to pharmacy students is very important.

Kind regards,

Williams Felicia Esemekiphoraro

As pharmacy profession is related to drugs and medicine we have to depends on crude drugs which obtained from natural sources like plant, animals and minerals. so it is necessary to learn identification and its all properties with its activity of all the drugs which are in the raw form. and so it is require as a syllabus of graduation course of pharmacy profession.

To learn that, not only the purified and single compounds could be as the "drug".

I would say that without teaching Pharmacognosy to the students, the pharmacy course curriculum would be incomplete in itself. It is the basis of all the complementary and alternative medicine approaches which are very popular all over the world.

I would add that Pharmacognosy is an important subject in the discipline, but as we know better that curriculum of pharmacy is already overloaded. Therefore it should to be included in master or any other specialization program. I personally DONT know where can i utilize the knowledge of pharmacognosy??? I am with Mr Louis Pagliaro

Mr. Abdulkarim, I agree with your comments but in India , the specilization in pharmacognosy (master degree) was started and continuing from last 15 years.

I think pharmacognosy should not be taught to pharmacy students but to herbal medicine students. It however can be made a postgraduate course for interested students from both disciplines

I do not agree with Matthew Kofi Oppong Ackah. Pharmacognosy is an integral part of Pharmaceutical Sciences. We can not ignore its role with advancing pharmaceutical sciences. In fact, it is the mother of other core branches like pharmacology, pharmaceutical chemistry and pharmaceutics. Various new branches of pharmacy like ethnopharmacology, pharmaceutical biology, reverse pharmacology, are directly or indirectly associated with pharmacognosy. Medicinal or Pharmaceutical chemistry is a derivative of Phytochemistry, which is an derivative of pharmacognosy. There are many drug molecules especially anticancer and antimicrobial, which have either been isolated from a natural source or based on some natural molecules. So pharmacognosy is the base of pharmaceutical sciences and it must be a compulsory subject in pharmacy curriculum.

Thank you but we need to develop and modify the subjects, for example we get our interest from studying chromatography because we are spent a lot of time regarding the isolation of natural compounds and charge a lot of methods for purification so, we have to take a least the responsibility about application of chromatographyv

Pharmacognosy has often been offered as an elective during pharmacy training. However, integrating pharmcognosy highlights into pharmacology courses may inspire future researchers.

Dear Ali Abdil Razzaq Muhammed Noori Aldallal 

Please can you send to me the article those you suggest,

1. The role of pharmacognosy in modern medicine and pharmacy. - PubMed - NCBI

Curr Drug Targets. 2006 Mar;7(3):247-64. Review

2.Pharmacognosy in modern pharmacy curricula Sarker SD - Phcog Mag

As a pharmacist, i can't say the teaching of pharmacognosy in pharmacy schools should be discouraged, instead it should be improved upon. Because drugs from natural source have proven to be effective in most ailments, eg there is a study going on in Jos on some herbal products for hepatitis B and C which have reach advance stage; also look at the case of our almighty Artemisinin combination drug from China which is presently the only hope for uncomplicated malaria cases. To be able to reach that stage in research, the pharmacognostical details of such plant most be carried out before the pharmacological studies.

Pharmacognosy is now an established branch of pharmaceutical science of crude drugs of recent origin, involved in studying the therapeutic use, quality control and discovery of new drugs form natural sources. Its root, however, is deeply anchored in the remote past.

Whether we want to accept it or not the study of natural products vis-a-vis pharmacognosy remains a key and integral part of drug development.We have barely scratched the surface as far as phyto compounds of pharmacological value is concerned. Thus,in my opinion,the importance of pharmacognosy is profound.

With the international  developments in pharmacy education, the importance of teaching pharmacognosy may graetly varied from the Bachelor degree in pharmacy and Pharm D programs. In Pharm D programs and according to ASPH and CCAPP standards only one course daeling with the  use of herbal drugs in therapy is recommended. However, and in my openion, in Bachelor of pharmacy program also the pharmacognosy course (s) should be confined to the study of natural products containing medicinally used active constituents, their chemistry and methods of identifications and avoiding going deeply to topics as  identification (taxonomy) and cultivation that could be far from the real practice of the pharmacy profession.

Except we want to say Pharmacy students should be taught what they need to practice. Even with that, all require sound knowledge of tremendous medicines plants contain particularly in areas where you have inadequate supply of drugs. Some American Universities that dropped Pharmacognosy from their curricula are now going back to it. Let us remove sentiment, the course remains the bedrock of Pharmacy because of its relationships with other parts of the professional training.

When I was in college (many years ago) my professor of pharmacognosy would come into class and ask at which page of the text book (Treas & Evans ?) we were at in the previous class -like he would always open the book and read sentences there and then explain a bit. This approach to delivery of the lecture made me hate the subject so much that I voted to remove pharmacognosy from the entire curriculum of pharmacy. Many years latter, with hind sight I believe the subject was simply being treated badly -  delivered in a very abstract form, making students not appreciate what importance it plays in day-to-day drug industry. And then we changed from traditional ways of teaching to involving students in "taking charge of their own learning". That is when reality was brought home to every body, including students as to why pharmacognosy is such a great subject. Obviously this has happened because I happen to have some leverage over deciding and leading a team of faculty to decide on the curriculum 

I would have loved to learn more about pharmacognosy in pharmacy school. Natural products were touched on very briefly and while we were educated on the natural origins of many drug products we never learned how the chemicals were discovered, extracted, or the techniques used to purify them.

There are several reasons which can be mentioned to explain the

increased interest in natural products and pharmacognosy:

-search for new leads for drug development

-biotechnology for the production of pharmaceuticals

-health claims for food (nutraceuticals)

-validation of traditional medicines

-increased interest in phytotherapy

One of the oldest and important subject in the drug discovery

Pharmacognosy is the subject which leads to the discovery of drug templates and paves way for new drug discovery. It not only gives the standardisation aspects, but also teaches to develop herbal formulations and their standardisation protocols that leads to entrepreneurship. In the recent context there is a paradign shift in the thought process of the subject. Clinical pharmacognosy is one dimension that includes herb drug and herb herb interaction, development of formulations using natural source, influence the bioavailability of allopathic drugs that leads to reduction in the dosage of allopathic medicines.

good explanation by Mohamed Ahmed Mustafa ; With the international  developments in pharmacy education, the importance of teaching pharmacognosy may greatly varied from the Bachelor degree in pharmacy and Pharm D programs. In Pharm D programs and according to ASPH and CCAPP standards only one course dealing with the  use of herbal drugs in therapy is recommended. However, and in my opinion, in Bachelor of pharmacy program also the pharmacognosy course (s) should be confined to the study of natural products containing medicinally used active constituents, their chemistry and methods of identifications and avoiding going deeply to topics as  identification (taxonomy) and cultivation that could be far from the real practice of the pharmacy profession.

Pharmacognosy has its relevance but in my opinion, as ample as pharmaceutical sciences have become nowadays and as clinical focused many programs in the US have evolved, pharmacognosy should not be taught as an independent course but rather be integrated in another subject or offered as an elective or postgraduate specialization.

It´s fascinating to delve into the realm of medicinal herbs and all those natural products and processes but this knowledge has a lot of unnecessary memorization and drug discovery today with biopharmaceutics and rational design is a lot more than just using plants to evaluate which chemicals can serve as lead compounds as it was in the past.

I´m not a supporter of the clinical approach of pharmacy, but it´s a fact that today there is a strong trend in this direction and for those in clinical work, it will not be much help studying plants either.

Otoh, a stronger emphasis on research and with the advent of AI, topics like biotechnology and proteo/genomics should gain more space in the programs.

Quite interesting this is coming up. I'm a student still understudying my PharmD related courses and one of such indispensable courses is Pharmacognosy which has many branches, such as phytochemistry and phytopharmacology. The whole idea is awesome and worthy of being taught because it makes us know the basic sources of drugs either natural or semisynthetic. It's better much appreciated when one is able to do the extraction. In short Pharmacognosy is very relevant to the pharmacist. But we students are challenged at the mode in which it is delivered. We wish that students would not be tasked to go all the way to dealing with taxonomy, history and all these herbal and aryuvedic systems.

Wide usage of herbal nutraceuticals by all (pediatrics to athletics to geriatric patients) has increased the need to more detailed coverage of" the importance of teaching pharmacognosy to pharmacy students" ...with respect to not only the beneficial effects but interactions effects on pharmacokinetics of various API.

Pharmacognosy is not something to be ignored just because today's drug development is more related with reverse pharmacology. Pharmacy students should know the history because history repeats itself. Many drugs were developed through the traditional way, extraction. Pharmacy students need to know the whole process on how drugs are made from plants and microbes because out in the field pharmaceutical companies study similar origins for synthetic biosimilarities. I wish pharmacognosy was in the system when I was learning, that way I wouldn't have difficulties to understand the pharmaceutical project reports.

I am a tutor of Pharmacognosy to pharmacy students. I think the subject is very essential for the student of pharmacy because it provides grounding in the history of drugs developed from plants. It also provides basic knowledge that can be used in counselling clients who wish to use a mixture of allopathic and herbal medicines.

Many times when I am teaching and mention that drug x was developed from a template molecule of plant x they are surprised. For the most part in the past and still presently, those who have no background or respect for herbal medicines try to ignore that the basis of modern medicine and pharmacy is grounded in the use of traditional medicine. For example Digoxin, Verapamil, Morphine, Atropine, Neostigmine, Metformin, Etoposide etc. etc. I can go on and on.

The point about teaching taxonomy is taken to some extent, however from my point of view the taxonomy elements of some plants is important. There are some drugs developed from plants that pharmacy students should have a knowledge of the taxonomy eg. Taxol and its history, Vinblastine

As we all know, medicinal plants have been primary sources of drugs for thousands of years, even popular today and around 80% of the population in developing countries is dependent upon the plants for their primary healthcare because these are safe, economic and have lower side effects. Being the mother branch of all the other branches necessary to be included in the pharmacy curriculum for the novel drug discovery process.

@Hamsa Lakshami while about 80% of persons still depend on medicinal plants for health and healing, studying Pharmacognosy can help pharmacy students to gain knowledge that can lead to further drug development. Additionally, studying pharmacognosy helps to give pharmacy students the knowledge and skills that enables them to interact in a meaningful ways with those who choose to use medicinals plants for health and healing.