الفهرس 
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Abstract
For millennia, many efficient drugs in the form of traditional medicines were developed from Nature for the treatment of a wide spectrum of diseases. Sophisticated traditional medicine system has documented the use of approximately 1000 plant-derived substances in Mesopotamia, with the earliest records, dating from around 2600 BC. For examples, oils of Cedrus species (cedar), Cupressus sempevirens (cypress), Commiphora species (myrrh) and Papaver somniferum (poppy juice) were used for the treatment of many ailments ranging from cough and colds to parasitic infections and inflammation (Dias et al. 2012; Cragg and Newman 2013; Almalki 2014). According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 80% of people still rely on plant-based traditional medicines for primary health care (Dias et al. 2012). Many natural products that represent about 80% of 122 plant-derived drugs have been isolated because of the knowledge associated with traditional medicine (Fabricant and Farnsworth 2001; Dias et al. 2012). For instance, the opium plant was traditionally used to relieve pain and fever. This observation resulted in the isolation of morphine (1), a painkiller, by the pharmacist Friedrich in 1805. This compound was synthesized for commercial use by Merck. So far, morphine continues to be the most common analgesic drug in clinics. This discovery inspired Bayer in 1899 to develop the first semi-synthetic pure drug, aspirin (2) based on a natural product, salicylic acid. Currently, aspirin is the gold standard agent for the primary and secondary prevention of thromboembolic diseases (Almalki 2014).