A phytochemical study of eight mexican plants

Abstract

Introduct ion ~[exico is a land with a great variety of native plants and, long before Columlms. the Aztecs and other Indian nations found many of them of medicinal value. Their knowledge of them was preserved orally. When the Spaniards came, an Indian scholar, Martin de la Cruz (1) wrote the first compilation on native medicinal plants. Later (in 1570), Francisco Herm4ndez, Physician of the King of Spain, traveled for five years throughout Mexico collecting medicinal plants. Later he wrote several manuscripts concerning them (2) which, after many adverse circumstances, were partially published in 1651. Other S1)anish 1)hysicians and pharmacists continued the search for the medicinal plants used by the several Indian nations for two centuries. During the last quarter of the 19th century, the .Mexican government estahlished a research center, the "Instituto M6(lico Nacional," in which a systematic studv of the native medicinal plants was undertaken. A hotanist collected and classified the plants, a chemist prepared extracts and started research on the active principles, a physiologist assayed the extracts on animals, and the physicians tested them on the inmates of a hospital for poor people. The results of this research, which was discontinued in 1912, were reported in two journals: "El Estudio" from 1889 to 1893, and the "Anales de1 Instituto M6dico Nacional" from 1894 to 1912. More recently, this kind of research has been continued in the schools of