Dr. Vicenzo De Feo, Full Professor of Pharmacognosy. Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences. State University of Salerno. Itàlia.
On 15 December 2016 Dr. Vicenzo De Feo presented us some of the studies that have been carried out in his laboratory using psychoactive plants. He indicated that the use of the plants made by humanity since time immemorial has changed the course of history, our world and the history of medicine. Some of them have been used to nourish us, others have given us shelter and protection and many others have healed us. The knowledge of the properties of plants such as chinchona, jimsonweed, St John's wort, willow, ipomoea, etc. have allowed us to obtain their active ingredients and apply their curative effects to heal a great variety of disorders.
Nature offers an endless number of models through plants and people have developed those models (extraction of the synthesis) and have applied them (clinic application). Working on those models, products such as quinine, atropine or acetylsalicylic acid, which has a daily use in our pharmacopoeia, have been obtained. Every day the synthesis of new compounds is realized applying the computational chemistry.
The studies he carries out with his team are included in "ethnobotany", a discipline interested in the relationships between humankind and plants. In addition to this co-evolution, they also study how people have selected plants with the aim of using them to restore body homeostasis and balance. This healing aspect causes some of them to be considered "magic plants". In the area of origin of the magic plant there is a ritual consumption, as it allows access to a state of recover of harmony and homeostasis. He pointed out that the consumption that takes place in the Western world and produces addiction is a very different phenomenon, which surprises those with an ancestral understanding of these plants (healers, shamans, teachers).
He noted that we only know a tiny part of the plants that have healing properties; biodiversity is very wide, but it is in danger. The loss of biodiversity means that we will never get to know the potential of the plants that become extinct.
Images:
