Medicines From Natural Sources
There are a lot of medications in use today whose chemicals can be found in plants/minerals (or which were originally derived from plants/minerals). Note that most of these, while originally derived directly from plant material, are currently made in a lab.
Acetaminophen comes from chemically changing acetanilide, a chemical found in coal tar.
Aspirin comes from chemically changing salicin, a chemical found in a number of plants (willow, poplar, meadowsweet, black haw, cramp bark, among others).
Atropine (used in emergency medicine to increase heart rate and treat certain poisonings, among other things) is found in a number of plants in the nightshade family.
Caffeine is present in a lot of plants (it's a natural insecticide) including tea, coffee, cocoa, and yaupon holly.
Cocaine (both the local anesthetic and the illicit substance) is from the coca plant.
Colchicine is used to treat gout and comes from autumn crocus.
Digoxin (a medication used to treat heart failure) comes from the foxglove plant.
L-Dopa, used to treat Parkinson's disease, comes from Mucuna species (cowage, velvetbean).
Nicotine, a stimulant, comes from tobacco.
Opium is the dried sap of poppy pods. From it can be isolated morphine and codeine. Processing morphine further produces heroin.
Pseudoephedrine and ephedrine, medications used as decongestants (among other things), come from ma huang and ephedra.
Quinine is an antipyretic (fever reducer) that used to work against malaria (malaria is now resistant to quinine). it also comes from the cinchona tree.
Quinidine is an antiarrhythmic drug used to treat bad heart rhythms. it comes from the cinchona tree.
Reserpine is a drug used to treat high blood pressure (among other things). It comes from Indian snakeroot.
Scopolamine, used to treat nausea and motions sickness, comes from black henbane, stinking nightshade, and henpin.
Theophylline is a bronchodilator (treats asthma) that comes from the cacao plant and tea plant.
