**Part 6**

**Ethnopharmacology and Toxicology** 

476 Pharmacology

Syafiie, S.; Niño, J.; Ionescu, C.; De Keyser, R. (2009). *NMPC for Propofol Drug Dosing during* 

LNCIS, No. 384, pp. 501–509.

*Anesthesia Induction*. L. Magni et al. (Eds.): Nonlinear Model Predictive Control,

**22** 

*Brazil* 

**The Influence of Displacement** 

Daniel Garcia and Lin Chau Ming

**by Human Groups Among Regions** 

*Universidade Estadual Paulista – Faculdade de Ciências Agronômicas* 

**in the Medicinal Use of Natural Resource:** 

**A Case Study in Diadema, São Paulo - Brazil** 

The migration of human groups around the world and the cultural mix of these people has instigated more researches in the field of ethnobotany/ethnopharmacology in recent years (Pieroni & Vandebroek, 2007). Brazil is an example of blending traditional knowledge combined with the use of natural resources to the cure of various diseases and, therefore, have been the subject of several surveys including ethnobotanical and ethnopharmacological. Given the enormous biological diversity and biochemistry in the several biomes around the world and also in Brazil, it is very difficult to find randomly a molecule on which it is possible to develop a competitive drug, acting on a mechanism known and has significant pharmacological properties (FAPESP, 2011). Therefore, the ethnobotany/ethnopharmacology are among the main strategies used for selecting plants to be investigated in laboratorial studies, those with great chances of success (Spjut & Perdue, 1976; Balick, 1990 as cited in Rodrigues, 2005), and is one of the fastest ways to obtain a safe product and pharmacologically

The ethnobotany looks at how people incorporate the plants in their cultural traditions and folk practices (Balick & Cox, 1997) or, according to Alcorn (1995), is the study of the interrelationships between humans and plants in dynamical systems (as cited in Rodrigues

The ethnopharmacology was originally defined as a science that sought to understand the universe of natural resources (plants, animals and minerals) as drugs used in the view of human groups (Schultes, 1988). However, over time this discipline has evolved and is

*"Interdisciplinary study of the physiological actions of plants, animals and others substances used in indigenous medicines of past and present cultures".*  This concept is also currently applied in the case of medicinal substances from nonindigenous people, thus expanding the diversity of information generated in studies ethnopharmacological. The relationship of the biological wealth of the world's diverse

defined by the INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ETHNOPHARMACOLOGY as:

**1. Introduction** 

active (Giorgetti et al., 2007).

et al., 2005).
