BACKGROUND VIEW OF DRUGS

Animals are dependent on food for their very existence. Man is no exception.
Man, as hunter and gatherer and later as agronomist, looked to plants and animals
for more than just food. Animals and plants provided tools, shelter, clothing, and
transportation, as well as labor.
Early man manifested an intelligence that led him to attempt to influence the
external world and to change things to his advantage. Inevitable injury and illness
were treated by means influenced by logic and intelligence. The means readily
available to preliterate mankind included experimentation with plant and animal
materials in the immediate environment. The trial and error method, combined with
oral traditions and later written record keeping, produced diverse local practices of
medicinal arts.
“The desire to take medicine is perhaps the greatest feature which distinguishes man
from animals.” William Osler (1849–1919), Canadian writer, lecturer, and physician.
Pharmacognosy, the study of the origin, nature, properties, and effects of natural
products on living organisms, grew from such instinctive responses to disease.
Pharmacology, the study of the origin, nature, properties, and effects of various
substances (naturally occurring and synthetic) on living organisms, grew from roots
grounded for centuries in these primitive practices. It is interesting to note that there
is a recent resurgence of interest in natural products for medical use.
With this new interest in natural products, keep in mind that efficacy, purity, and
active ingredient concentration of substances sold as nutritional supplements are not
regulated by any arm of the U.S. federal government. Recently, the U.S. Pharmacopeial
(USP) Convention began a voluntary program for the certification of purity
and active ingredient concentration of nutritional supplements. The USP is a private,
not-for-profit entity founded in 1820 and entirely independent from the government.
Except for products certified by this process, a potential for variance still exists
between manufacturers, between lots from the same manufacturer, and even within
the same lot.