29
Medical Ethnobotany and
Ethnopharmacology of Europe
Manuel Pardo-de-Santayana
1
, Cassandra L. Quave
2
, Renata Sõukand
3
and Andrea Pieroni
4
1
Departamento de Biología (Botánica), Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
2
Center for the Study of Human Health, Emory University, Atlanta, USA
3
Estonian Literary Museum, Vanemuise, Tartu, Estonia
4
University of Gastronomic Sciences, Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, Bra/Pollenzo, Italy
29.1 Introduction
European medicinal plants have attracted scholars since an
cient times and continue to be
a central interest of ethnographers, anthropologists, eth
nobiologists, pharmacologists and
other scholars interested in wider health questions (Kołod
ziejska-Degórska, 2012; Lardos
and Heinrich, 2013; Shikov
et al.
, 2014). Medicinal plant knowledge in Europe is rooted in a
long history of health traditions dating back to ancient Gre
ek, Roman and Arabic medical
systems and over the centuries has been passed down via both w
ritten and oral pathways
(see Chapters 28 and 30). Over time, Sumerian, Chinese, Indi
an or American medicines have
entered into the European pharmacopoeia. While some of thes
e traditions have survived
throughout the centuries, many others have changed or disap
peared, and new uses of plants
have emerged either from local experience or imported from o
ther traditions. The result is a
very rich pharmacopoeia and a profound local knowledge abou
t medicinal plants. However,
in fast-changing environments many traditions are disappe
aring. An alarming rate of decline
of traditional medical knowledge has been highlighted by mo
st European ethnobotanical
eld studies (Quave
et al.
, 2012b).
While numerous studies address t
Medical Ethnobotany and Ethnopharmacology of Europe. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282574047_Medical_Ethnobotany_and_Ethnopharmacology_of_Europe [accessed Oct 7, 2015].
