Comparative ethnopharmacology: a rational method for the search of bioactive compounds in plants

In the present preliminary communication on comparative ethnopharmacology a limited universe of data extracted from the Journal of Ethnopharmacology (vols. 1-25) was used for the construction of ethnopharmacological profiles of ten families of dicotyledons. Intraprofile analysis suggested the main uses of plant species (indicated by the maximal citation frequencies), as opposed to the spurious ones (represented by base line fluctuations), to possess a solid chemotaxonomic basis. Interprofile analysis via correlation of ethnopharmacological distances and morphological (evolutionary) distances among the same plant families suggested comparative ethnopharmacology to possess also a phylogenetic (chemosystematic) basis. This result establishes comparative ethnopharmacology as a novel and potentially useful scientific discipline.