“Clinical pharmacognosy”- A new interesting era of pharmacy in the third millennium

Pharmacognosy, which literally means studying medications of natural sources, has been a part of medical arts and sciences since mankind first began to treat illnesses [2]. To get a proper perspective about this science, which deals with plant, animal, mineral and other natural medications, it is extremely helpful to investigate the historical aspects of this science and to recognize the pioneers of this field. By an experience obtained from trial and error, early man had to acquire biologic knowledge useful in determining the effects of available foods and beverages derived from plants. Although the pharmacognosy term was used for the first time in 1811 by the Austrian physician, Schimdt, the founder of the first independent pharmacognosy institute in the world was Crovatian Domac in 1896 [2-4]. In the field of pharmacognosy the Persian outstanding scientists like Rhazes, Avicenna and Jorjani created major progresses and improvements that started modern pharmacognosy in the world. Fortunately traditional medicine and its remedies contribute to a major role in the current health care systems of several countries [4,5].The study of medications of plant origin includes the subjects of botany, chemistry and pharmacology. Botany includes toxonomy, genetics, and cultivation of plants. Chemical characterization includes the isolation, elucidation and quantification of constituents and natural products pharmacology. The science of pharmacognosy has been progressed to phytochemistry, plant biotechnology, medical ethnobotany, ethnopharmacology, phytotherapy, marine and zoo pharmacognosy. Although pharmacognosy has been improved and expanded in several aspects, it has no hard link with clinical trials yet [2,5].Clinical pharmacy requires optimum use of medications, therapeutic knowledge, counseling, clinical experience, therapeutic drug monitoring and disease good diagnosis. A clinical pharmacist collaborates with physicians in multidisciplinary meetings and rounds and would