Le livre des plantes médicinales et vénéneuses de France

Abstract

DURING the past century the active principles of many medicinal plants have been isolated and identified. This has had the advantage of substituting substances of known composition for somewhat indefinite mixtures, with a corresponding gain in accuracy of dosage and consistency of results. It has sometimes happened that the purified substance has not replicated all the known or suspected effects of the crude drug ; and this is scarcely to be wondered at, since physiologically active substances like the alkaloids tend to be produced in groups of related compounds rather than by themselves. Members of a group, although chemically similar, may have noticeably different physiological effects. For these reasons modern pharmacopoeias still include numerous galenicals side by side with plant extracts, pure 'chemicals' of plant origin, and others that have originated in the laboratory.

Le livre des plantes médicinales et vénéneuses de France

Par Dr. P. Fournier. Tome 1: Abricot à Coloquinte. (Encyclopédie Lorogique, Tome 25.) Pp. lxxviii + 448. (Paris: Paul Lechevalier, 1947.) 800 francs.