Farmacopéias tradicionais : o papel das plantas medicinais na sua constituição, formação e manutenção em comunidades da Caatinga

Abstract

Traditional pharmacopoeias are "social institutions" essential for the maintenance of traditional societies. Its construction and maintenance suffer multifactorial influences ranging from cultural aspects as cultural construction of society, dominant religion and even social structure include environmental factors such as surrounding vegetation, climate and seasonal availability of resources. Throughout history, many medical systems were developed by these societies, and these influenced the formation of these pharmacopoeias directing criteria that would be most valuable in the selection of plants. With intercultural contact, many societies started to incorporate exotic plants for the maintenance of pharmacopoeias. Therefore, there were many interpretations of the massive presence of these. The importance of exotic plants with medicinal purpose has been historically neglected by simplistic interpretations of the causes of their introduction in traditional pharmacopoeias, since there are few papers that bothered to point them in the etnofloristic lists just ignored them in analysis. Often, the presence of exotic plants in traditional pharmacopoeias is seen as a simple phenomenon of acculturation, or even as an erosion of knowledge. However, it is necessary to understand what events that drive the introduction and even deletion of a medicinal plant by a particular culture. We know that exotic plants have an important contribution in pharmacopoeia of traditional societies around the world. Probably, these plants are the most abundant element. Objective of this study is to review the different interpretations on aspects related to construction of pharmacopoeias and the presence of exotic plants.