Pharmacognosy in Turkey

Abstract

This presentation will give an overview on the wide range of studies of Pharmacognosy in Turkey, since its establishment as a discipline during the Ottoman Empire, up until contemporary times. Studies of Pharmacognosy have begun in 1839 together with the official education of pharmacy. Dr. Charles Ambroise Bernard (1808–1844), Dr. Mehmed Akif Aykut (1887–1939), Prof. Dr. Alfred Heilbronn (1885–1961) and Prof. Dr. Sarım Hüsnü Çelebioğlu (1897–1982) were the first scholars who had initially developed the education of Pharmacognosy. Prof. Dr. S.H. Çelebioğlu obtained the PhD degree under the supervision of Prof. Dr. E. Gilg at Berlin Friedrich-Wilhems University in 1932. In his dissertation, Çelebioğlu investigated the occurence of the opium alkaloids in the root ends of Papaver somniferum, and, its transfer to the whole plant by latex vessels. Çelebioğlu is the founder of the Institute of Pharmacognosy in Istanbul University (1945) and the first author of a Pharmacognosy textbook in Turkey (1949). Three PhD studies performed by Dr. Turhan Baytop (1920–2002), Dr. Mekin Tanker and Dr. Nevin Tanker on Ephedra campylopoda C.A.May, Marsdenia erecta R.Br. and Juniperus nana Wild. had been completed under his supervision, respectively. Dr. Baytop, a distinguished scientist focusing mostly on „Medicinal Plants and the Flora of Turkey“ and the „History of Pharmacy in Turkey“, initiated the National Pharmacognosy Meetings in 1976. Since then, these meetings have been biennially organized by the collaborative efforts of Departments of Pharmacognosy and Pharmaceutical Botany of the different faculties of whose number has risen to twenties. Moreover, the members of these departments have been the founders and pioneers of the Turkish Society of Pharmacognosy & Pharmaceutical Botany. Materials for research carried out by these scientists are provided from the flora of Turkey which represents more than 11000 taxa, including over 3000 endemic species. The richness and diversity of the flora and the knowledge on medicinal plants of this geographical region, continuing the tradition of Hippocrates, Dioscorides, Galenos, Avicenna and Ibn el-Beithar, are still offering an invaluable opportunity to Turkish plant scientists. The scientific studies conducted can be mainly classified as floristic, ethnobotanical, ethnopharmacological, chemical structures and/or activity guided studies. During the last two decades pharmacognostic studies have become interdisciplinary, encouraging collaborative works of multiple disciplines, resulting in most fruitful results.