The 170 color plates in this book are of art book quality and the graphic organization deserves a design award. The book is a pleasure to own and peruse. However, the effort and expense to produce these features were, I expect, for more practical than aesthetic purposes. The extraordinary color photography and reproduction have the goal of matching the true colors of the striking fluorescence and color reactions seen in thin-layer chromatography. This book achieves this better than any other this reviewer has seen before. The book will function as a useful handbook for identification and interpretation of composition of plant products, especially for those laboratories who have the duty of assaying medicinal plant products for meeting pharmacopeia standards. All laboratories that have occasion to assay plant material for the presence of pharmacologically active compounds will find this a useful addition to their reference shelf.

Plant Drug Analysis has proven an invaluable and unique aid for all those involved with drug production and analysis, including pharmacists, chemical and pharmaceutical researchers and technicians, drug importers and exporters, governmental chemical control agencies, and health authorities. From the reviews of the German Edition: "The reviewer would like to recommend this excellent book to all chromatographers, as he considers it highly relevant to the solution of numerous problems. Its main purpose is the demonstration of thin-layer chromatograms of the usual commercial drugs as an aid in testing for identity and purity. ... 165 colour plates, each showing 6 chromatograms and all of superb quality photographs ..." (Journal of Chromatography)

This important book for scientists and nonscientists alike calls attention to a most urgent global problem: the rapidly accelerating loss of plant and animal species to increasing human population pressure and the demands of economic development. Based on a major conference sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences and the Smithsonian Institution, Biodiversity creates a systematic framework for analyzing the problem and searching for possible solutions.

This manual, to be published in two volumes, provides a condensed overview of the analytical investigation of 80 Chinese Herbal Drugs which are most frequently in use. Thin layer chromatographic-, high pressure liquid chromatographic- and gas chromatographic-fingerprint analytical techniques allow the detection of all main low-molecular constituents of a plant drug and even single constituents can be visualized. Analytical results thereof are shown in numerous color figures. The quality proof of the investigation meets the standard of the European Drug Regulatory Authority. Furthermore, this volume gives a detailed description of the analytical methods used for several drugs. Bioactive constituents, pharmacological and biological activities of several single herbal drugs as well as their therapeutic applications are discussed.

The global popularity of herbal supplements and the promise they hold in treating various disease states has caused an unprecedented interest in understanding the molecular basis of the biological activity of traditional remedies. Herbal Medicine: Biomolecular and Clinical Aspects focuses on presenting current scientific evidence of biomolecular ef

Plants and plant-derived compounds and drugs are becoming more and more popular with increasing numbers of scientists researching plant analysis. The quality control of herbal drugs is also becoming essential to avoid severe health problems, and in the future many more new drugs will be developed from plant sources. This three-volume Handbook, featuring 47 detailed review articles, is unique as it deals with chemical and biological methodologies for plant analysis. It presents the most important and most accurate methods which are available for plant analysis. This comprehensive work is divided into six sections as follows: Sample preparation and identification – discussing plant selection and collection, followed by extraction and sample preparation methodologies. Extraction and sample preparation methodologies Instrumentation for chemical analysis - several instrumentations for chemical plant analysis are presented with an emphasis on hyphenated techniques, e.g. the coupling between HPLC and mass spectroscometry, and HPLC with NMR. Strategies for selective classes of compounds – coverage of the most interesting classes of compounds such as polysaccharides, saponins, cardiotonic glycosides, alkaloids, terpenoids, lipids, volatile compounds and polyphenols ( flavonoids, xanthones, coumarins, naphthoquinones, anthraquinones, proanthocyanidins, etc.). Biological Analysis - includes phenotyping, DNA barcoding techniques, transcriptome analysis , microarray, metabolomics and proteomics. Drugs from Plants – covers the screening of plant extracts and strategies for the quick discovery of novel bioactive natural products. Safety assessment of herbal drugs is highly dependent on outstanding chromatographic and spectroscopic methods which are also featured here. This Handbook introduces to scientists involved in plant studies the current knowledge of methodologies in various fields of chemically- and biochemically-related topics in plant research. The content from this Handbook will publish online within the Encyclopedia of Analytical Chemistry via Wiley Online Library: http://www.wileyonlinelibrary.com/ref/eac Benefit from the introductory offer, valid until 30 November 2014! Introductory price: £425.00 / $695.00 / €550.00 List price thereafter: £495.00 / $795.00 / €640.00

Used routinely in drug control laboratories, forensic laboratories, and as a research tool, thin layer chromatography (TLC) plays an important role in pharmaceutical drug analyses. It requires less complicated or expensive equipment than other techniques, and has the ability to be performed under field conditions. Filling the need for an up-to-date, complete reference, Thin Layer Chromatography in Drug Analysis covers the most important methods in pharmaceutical applications of TLC, namely, analysis of bulk drug material and pharmaceutical formulations, degradation studies, analysis of biological samples, optimization of the separation of drug classes, and lipophilicity estimation. The book is divided into two parts. Part I is devoted to general topics related to TLC in the context of drug analysis, including the chemical basis of TLC, sample pleparation, the optimization of layers and mobile phases, detection and quantification, analysis of ionic compounds, and separation and analysis of chiral substances. The text addresses the newest advances in TLC instrumentation, two-dimensional TLC, quantification by slit scanning densitometry and image analysis, statistical processing of data, and various detection and identification methods. It also describes the use of TLC for solving a key issue in the drug market—the presence of substandard and counterfeit pharmaceutical products. Part II provides an in-depth overview of a wide range of TLC applications for separation and analysis of particular drug groups. Each chapter contains an introduction about the structures and medicinal actions of the described substances and a literature review of their TLC analysis. A useful resource for chromatographers, pharmacists, analytical chemists, students, and R&D, clinical, and forensic laboratories, this book can be utilized as a manual, reference, and teaching source.

This book discusses 120 types of natural, small-molecule drugs derived from plants. They are grouped into 7 parts according their clinical uses, such as drugs for cardiovascular diseases, for metabolic diseases, for neuropsychiatric diseases, for immune-mediated inflammatory diseases, anti-tumor drugs, and drugs for parasites and bacterial infection. Each chapter systematically summarizes one drug, including its physicochemical properties, sources, pharmacological effects and clinical applications. To help readers understand the drug better, the research and pharmacological activity for each drug is also described, which serves as a salutary lesson for future drug development. Written by frontline researchers, teachers and clinicians working in field of pharmacy and pharmacology it provides an overview of natural, small-molecule drugs derived from plants for researchers in the field.

THE INSPIRATION FOR THE MAJOR NEW NETFLIX SERIES, HOW TO CHANGE YOUR MIND 'It's a trip - engrossing, eye-opening, mind altering' New Statesman 'Fascinating. Pollan is the perfect guide ... curious, careful, open minded' The Guardian Of all the many things humans rely on plants for, surely the most curious is our use of them to change consciousness: to stimulate, calm, or completely alter the qualities of our mental experience. In This Is Your Mind On Plants, Michael Pollan explores three very different drugs - opium, caffeine and mescaline - and throws the fundamental strangeness of our thinking about them into sharp relief. Exploring and participating in the cultures that have grown up around these drugs, while consuming (or in the case of caffeine, trying not to consume) them, Pollan reckons with the powerful human attraction to psychoactive plants, and the equally powerful taboos. In a unique blend of history, science, memoir and reportage, Pollan shines a fresh light on a subject that is all too often treated reductively. In doing so, he proves that there is much more to say about these plants than simply debating their regulation, for when we take them into our bodies and let them change our minds, we are engaging with nature in one of the most profound ways we can. This ground-breaking and singular book holds up a mirror to our fundamental human needs and aspirations, the operations of our minds and our entanglement with the natural world.

Traditional Chinese medicine has been used for thousands of years by a large population. It is currently still serving many of the health needs of the Chinese people; and still enjoying their confi dence it is practised in China in parallel with modern Western medical treatment. In addition to scientific organisations dedi cated to modern Western medicine, e. g. the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and various medical schools, a series of parallel institutions have been established in China to promote traditional Chinese medicine, such as the Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine and training institutions. Almost all hospitals in China have a department of traditional medicine. Furthermore, a large number of scientific journals are dedicated to traditional Chinese medicine, covering both experimental and clinical investigations. Medicinal materials constitute a key topic in the treatment of disease according to traditional Chinese medicine. The Chinese Pharmacopoeia (1985 edition) is therefore divided into two sepa rate volumes, Volume I containing traditional Chinese medicinal materials and preparations and Volume II containing pharmaceu tics of Western medicine. The oldest Chinese review of medicinal materials, Shennong Bencao Jing (100-200 A. D. ), covered 365 herbal drugs. The clas sic compilation in this field, Bencao Gangmu (Compendium of Materia Medica), was published in 1578 by Li Shi-zhen and recorded as many as 1898 crude drugs of plant, animal and min eral origin.