Man has been using herbs and plant products for combating diseases since time immemorial. In the early stages the science of medicine develop around those plants which had curative properties. In the early 19 th century the study of crude drugs was carried out under one discipline coined as “Pharmacognosy” and it has been the subject of great development during the 20 th century. Conventionally, Pharmacognosy, an applied science concerned with the description, identification, cultivation, collection, preparation, storage, extraction, isolation, standardization of natural drugs. It shares ground with chemistry, biochemistry, physiology, enzymology, food technology, pharmacology, bacteriology, plant-biotechnology and a number of other fields of specialization. Pharmacognosy seek to embrace them in a unified whole for the better understanding and utilization of medicinal plants.
In a nut-shell, Pharmacognosy is the important bridge between the pharmaceutical and basic sciences and also a vital link between Ayurvedic, Homoeopathic and Allopathic system of medicines. Now a days, all over the world the demand of herbal drugs has been increased enormously due to their effectiveness, easy availability, low cost and comparatively being devoid of serious toxic effects. It could be possible as this is equipped with sophisticated instruments for identification, extraction, isolation, characterization and evaluation of crude drugs. Pharmacognosy is important not only as an academic exercise but also is the infrastructure on which evaluation of novel medicines depend.
The future development of pharmacognosy as well as herbal drug industry would be largely dependant upon the reliable methodologies for identification of marker compounds of the extract and also upon the standardization and quality control of these extracts. It is the responsibility of pharmacognosist and phytochemist to explore the wonder drug molecules from the unexploited wealth available in vast resources of medicinal flora and fauna of both terrestrial and marine source.