Pharmacognosy, known initially as materia medica, may be defined as thestudy of crude drugs obtained from plants, animals and mineral kingdom and their constituents. There is a historical misinformation about who created the term pharmacognosy. According to some sources, it was C. A. Seydler, a medical student at Halle, Germany, in 1815; he wrote his doctoral thesis titled Analectica Pharmacognostica. However, recent historical research has found an earlier usage of this term.