Medicinal Plants Classification Biosynthesis and ... - Index of

In: Medicinal Plants Classification, Biosynthesis... ISBN: 978-1-60876-027-5
Editor: Alejandro Varela and Jasiah Ibañez © 2007 Nova Science Publishers, Inc.
Chapter 8
Pharmacologic Study of Some Plant
Species from the Brazilian Northeast:
Calotropis Procera, Agava Sisalana,
Solanum Paludosum, Dioscorea
Cayenensis and Crotalaria Retusa
Silvânia Maria Mendes Vasconcelos,
José Eduardo Ribeiro Honório Júnior,
Rita Neuma Dantas Cavalcante de Abreu and
Márcia Calheiros Chaves Silva
Federal University of Ceará, Faculty of Medicine, Fortaleza.
60000-000 - Fortaleza, CE - Brasil 60000-000 - Fortaleza, CE - Brazil
1. Introduction
The humankind needs to keep on exploring, in a rational manner, the chemical
substances offered by living organisms, learning, copying and imitating the nature in its
potential and structural diversity offered by laboratories of vegetal and animal analysis.
Learning the chemical dynamism adopted by fauna and flora organisms will undoubtedly
help the scientific progress of the nations. Besides, it will provide contribution for a better
quality of life, protection and survival, comprehension and conservation of environmental
conditions on planet Earth (Turolla, Nascimento, 2006; David, David, 2006).
The isolation and study of natural substances have been a central concern of chemical
and biological sciences for more than 200 years. The Dictionary of Natural Products and its
four supplements describe chemical, structural, pharmacological and bibliographic data of
more than 100.000 natural products and related substances (Buckingham, 1993).
The alophatic medicine uses 119 drugs, which are extracted from about 90 species of
superior plants. The existence of about 250.000 superior plant species allow us to deduce that
many substances with medicinal activities can be isolated and structurally characterized from