| Classification of crude drugs | 1 Alphabetical
2 Taxonomy
3 Morphology
4 Pharmacological or therapeutic applications
5 Chemical classification
6 Chemotaxonomical |
| easy to use with no repetition of entries and is devoid of confusion, but There is no relationship between previous and successive drug entries. | Alphabetical |
| classified according to kingdom, subkingdom, division, class, order, family, genus and species. | Taxonomy |
| based on characters of the plant parts or animal parts, i.e. which part of the plant is used as a drug, e.g. leaves, roots, stem, etc | Morphology |
| based on most important constituent or their therapeutic use | Pharmacological or therapeutic applications |
| according to its active constituents eg.alkaloids, glycosides,tannins,etc | Chemical classification |
| relies on the chemical similarity of a taxon, i.e. it is based on the existence of relationship between constituents in various plant. | Chemotaxonomical |
| The simplest way
In their Latin and English names(common names)
Local language names(vernacular names) | Alphabetical |
| Advantage and Disadvantage of Alphabetical classification | Advantages:
1 Easy and quick to use
2 No repetition of entries
3 Easy tracing and addition of drugs
Disadvantages:
1 No relationship between previous and successive drug entries |
| Advantage and Disadvantage of Taxonomical Classification | Advantages:
1 Helpful for studying evolutionary developments
Disadvantages:
1 Does not correlate in between the chemical constituents and biological activity of the drugs |
| Advantage and Disadvantage of Morphological classification | Advantages:
1 More helpful to identify and detect adulteration More convenient for practical study especially when the chemical nature of the drug is not clearly understood
2 There is no correlation of chemical constituents with the therapeutic actions
Disadvantages:
1 Repetition of drugs or plant occurs |
| More relevant and mostly followed method | Pharmacological/therapeutic classification |
| Advantage and Disadvantage of Pharmacological/therapeutic classification | Advantages:
1 used for suggesting substitutes of drugs, if they are not available at a particular place or point of time
Disadvantages:
1 Drugs having different action on the body get classified separately in more than one group that causes ambiguity and confusion |
| Advantage and Disadvantage of Chemical classification | Advantages:
1 it is a popular approach for phytochemical studies
Disadvantages:
1 ambiguities arise when particular drugs possess a number of compounds belonging to different groups of compounds. |
