Medical plants: from Colonial Brazil to their indication by the National Single Health System – SHS

Abstract

Traditional knowledge of medicinal plants contextualizes the history of humanity. Thus, this research aims to analyze the use of medicinal plants in Brazil, addressing the historical aspects, the regulatory framework, and the prospects of proof and indication by SHS. Human kind has always used medicinal plants, described 60,000 years ago B.C. and 5,000 years ago B.C. by Chinese medicine. In Brazil, due to the wide biological diversity of fauna, flora, and traditional communities, it is a historical representation of human interaction with ecosystems. Some naturalists who have traveled throughout Brazil during the Colonial and Imperial periods, resulting in works such as Natural History of Brazil and Nature, Diseases, Medicine and Remedies of Brazilian Indians, have described the reports on the use of plants. The field diaries and drawings produced by the travelers were essential for the development of research. Only in the twentieth century it was possible to perform more complex pharmacological tests, and the regulatory framework governing the production, use, and regularization of medicinal plants was subsequently approved, as well as in the National Program of Medicinal Plants and Phytotherapies, phytotherapeutic drugs were inserted into the treatment of diseases of the Single Health System. The interculturation of traditional knowledge by the different cultures that make up Brazil is a unique factor in the dissemination of phytotherapy present in the national floristic diversity.