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Memory P. Elvin-Lewis 2 vm.Ic range ol plant-t.» maintain rhei: In allh. Modern medicine has b heir empirical methodol. I reeded candidates for a c numbers of illnesses. When llie rapid desiruction of diverse tropical ising traditional medicine live, is related to the recent upsurge of int 1 other agents, there is ample reason to justify learning what plant! â-ireumstani e-I' . |' I hese often ig t materials that can be meaningfully analyzed for activity using appropriate Examples of ethn. mi. hi ill. dicinal uses (Ft There is great scop.-for new drug discoveries from folk and ethru based on traditional medicinal plant im-I lirouejinul al . I ( >8!~k Socj.u l> the world (Cox et ah, 1989; Farnsworth, 1984; reasonable to condu Farnsworth & Soejarto, 1991; Moerman, 1991; search in order to Phillipson & And 19; S ultes& Raffauf, pharmaceuticals. 1990; Turner & Herbda, 1990; Tyler, 1986). In This paper will examine five topics relating to a recent review, Lewis (1992) outlined several hun-ethnomedicinal targeting of plants as potential dred plants by medical category currently used in sources of new therapeutics: (1) initial collection modern medicine and pharmacy, illustrating recent of medicinal plants for screening, (2) evaluation of selections of natural products and their incorpo-targeted collections, (3) plants as sources of drugs, ration into modern pharmacopeias. He also showed (4) ethnomedicine of western Amazonian plants, how a culturally intact tribe, the Jivaro, use plants and (5) intellectual property rights.for health care on a daily basis. However, as he { CoLLECm)N {)F Medicinal Plants slated, "Serious dangers exist for the survival of ^ g CREEN1N( . such peoples ami I heir cultures, and the ecosystems which nurture them and pro\ ide \\ .stern and tra-There are a number of different ways to obtain ditional medicines with novel plant products for plants for screening. These range from "random" human well-being everywhere. In this race against or biodiversity-based selection to selections based ecosystem destruction, researchers in many dis-on taxonomic, chemical, or ethnobotanical data, or ciplines must rally to provide the impetus to save any combination of these and other approaches, global diversity while, at the same time, acceler-To date, most large plant collections are obtained ating studies of ethnomedicine in consort with bio-"at random," with a goal of procuring as diverse medical and chemical teams for developing new a taxonomic representation as possible. The first natural products and drugs needed by humans into National Cancer Institute (NCI) "random" prothe next century." As about three-quarters of the curement program (19601980) had several biologically active plant-derived compounds pres-guidelines: a sample consisting of any plant part ently in use worldwide have been discovered through or combinations of plant parts would be acceptable follow-up research to verify the authenticity of data if the sample could be supplied in an amount of 1 ..-don Cragg, duel . I Ik \ IY.»li;e| i .,...

Three known alkaloids, isoboldine (2), norisoboldine (1), and magnoflorine (8), have been isolated for the first time from Croton lechleri, a source of the wound healing latex "sangre de grado". An HPLC system was developed, and a large number of latex and leaf samples of C. lechleri from 22 sites in northern Peru and Ecuador were analyzed to gain an understanding of the natural variation in alkaloid content for the species. Up to six alkaloids were found to occur in the leaves including, in addition to those listed above, thaliporphine (3), glaucine (4), and taspine (9), whereas the latex contained only 9. Taspine (9) is the component that has been previously found to be responsible for the wound healing activity of C. lechleri latex, and its mean concentration throughout the range examined was found to be 9% of the latex by dry weight. In addition, three chemotypes are defined based on the alkaloid content of the leaves, and the geographic distribution of these chemotypes is discussed along with a quantitative analysis of the alkaloid content as a function of chemotype.

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