Pharmacol Ther. 1994 ; 64(2): 201-14.

Ethnopharmacology in the Brazilian Amazon.

Elisabetsky E, Shanley P.

Departamento de Farmacologia, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil.

The potential pharmaceutical wealth of the Brazilian Amazon has attracted international attention from the general and scientific community. The role that ethnopharmacology can have in the discovery and development of new drugs from a region hosting such enormous cultural and biological diversity is discussed. A review is given of ethnopharmacological and ethnobotanical studies that have been conducted in the Brazilian Amazon over the past twenty years.