The following review is provided by the American Botanical Council (www.herbalgram.org), as part of the HerbClipe Education Mailing Service. For more information, see the credit at the end of this article.
Medicinal plants have been used for therapeutic purposes since the beginning of civilization. Following a recent period in Western medicine when plant medicines were shunned, there has been a resurgence of interest in plant compounds with beneficial pharmacological properties. The development of these agents is a long and expensive undertaking. This paper outlines the necessary steps to accomplish this task.