Autore: Arianna Caprodossi

1. INTRODUCTION

Herbal remedies have been used as therapeutic agents due to their medical properties. Ancient Egypt, China and Ancient Greece are examples of how to study plants and the applications that come with them. The first news on the use of plants and herbs for healing dates back to 10000 years ago in India, but the first written documents belong to the Chinese civilization. Other important documents are the Egyptian papyri and the Bible itself. In the Greek period, the first treatise on pharmaceutical botany was written, while in Roman times there were those on Pharmacognosy and Pharmacotherapy. To the Arabs we owe the birth of alchemy and in the medieval period the spice and drug market started to develop (Bellomaria et al.2005). The term “drug”, which appears for the first time in England in the fourteenth century and in Italy in the fifteenth century, refers to part of a plant body that contains one or more pharmacologically active substances called active ingredients. Many plants have been reported to have
pharmacological activities from their phytoconstituents such as glycosides, saponins, flavonoids, steroids, tannins, alkaloids, terpenes, and so on. Thanks to the scientific research, it has been shown that a plant organism called medicinal plant, contains in one or more organs, substances which can be used for therapeutic purposes or which are precursors of chemical- pharmaceutical synthesis. This means that these molecules can have various applications also
in the chemical pharmaceutical synthetic sector. Plants are effective in the treatment of several types of pathologies and their active principles interact with the human biological matrix, causing functional changes, such as beneficial effects, if taken in correct doses. Plants have high effectiveness and patient’s acceptability for their “naturalness”. The consumption of medicinal plants in different countries is increasing day by day. More than 80% of patients are
treated with medicinal compounds derived from plant (Fereidoonfar et al. 2018). Members of the Anacardiaceae family for example, like Sumac (Rhus coriaria L.), have long reputation in folk medicine for their properties. In my work, divided into four macro-areas, I looked for scientific articles and books and I analyzed a particular plant, called Sicilian Sumac. In the general part, I described the various aspects of Sumac, like the history and anatomy of the plant, and its main chemical constituents, along with its properties and therapeutic uses. The aim of
my work was to evaluate and analyze the Sicilian Sumac from a phytochemical point of view, to then understand which is the best sumac population in Sicily, comparing the samples of the various plant parts from the sicilian species between each other.