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Ethnopharmacy


Ethnomedicine is a study or comparison of the traditional medicine practiced by various ethnic groups, and especially by indigenous peoples. The word ethnomedicine is sometimes used as a synonym for traditional medicine.

Ethnomedical research is interdisciplinary; in its study of traditional medicines, it applies the methods of ethnobotany and medical anthropology. Often, the medicine traditions it studies are preserved only by oral tradition.

Scientific ethnomedical studies constitute either anthropological research or drug discovery research. Anthropological studies examine the cultural perception and context of a traditional medicine. The purpose of drug discovery research is to identify and develop a marketable pharmaceutical product.

Ethnopharmacology is a related study of ethnic groups and their use of drugs. Ethnopharmacology is distinctly linked to plant use, ethnobotany, as this is the main delivery of pharmaceuticals.Ethnopharmacy is the interdisciplinary science that investigates the perception and use of pharmaceuticals within a given human society. Emphasis has long been on traditional medicines, although the approach also has proven useful to the study of modern pharmaceuticals.

It deals with the study of the pharmaceutical means considered in relation to the cultural contexts of their use, e.g. the study of the cultural determinants that characterise the uses of these means within a culture. It involves studies of the:

Ethnopharmacy shares a common terrain with medical anthropology and anthropology of pharmaceuticals. Ethnopharmacology also relates to pharmacoepidemiology, the study of how drugs are used by and affect large numbers of people.


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