Talk:Ethnopharmacology

Merger proposal
I propose that Ethnopharmacy be merged into Ethnopharmacology. The Ethnopharmacy article is currently a stub and its content can easily be treated under the heading of Ethnopharmacology. The Ethnopharmacology article is of such a small size that the merging of Ethnopharmacy will not cause any problems as far as article size or undue weight is concerned. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 18:35, 23 May 2012 (UTC)


 * support In drug development and pharmacsy sciences (pharmacognosy, pharmacology, pharmaceutical biology and so on) the term "ethnopharmacology" is many times used of scientific methods that attempt to find western medicines from traditional healing traditions. I have never heard of the word "ethnopharmacy", and most likely whatever it means is the same as the above. 88.114.154.216 (talk) 18:41, 5 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Actually, it does seem however, that what is meant with the term is something akin to "ethnobotany" or "ethnomedicine". PErhaps it should be mergered to Ethnomedicine. The article ethnopharmacsy does have a point when it says that it should not be mixed up with ethnopharmacology. Ethnopharmacology, like I said, is sort of like a subfield of drug development, whereas what that article is about is a subfield of anthropology/ethnology. I googled the term, and yes, there are journals and books that use this term. 88.114.154.216 (talk) 19:01, 5 November 2012 (UTC)


 * I think ethnopharmacology should be merged under Ethnopharmacy, and not the other way around. The text says they are different, in that ethnopharmacology only deals with a specific topic. Also it says ethnopharmacy involves the study of ethnopharmacology. Sidelight 12 Talk 01:32, 31 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Support the original proposal. The sources that I checked do not have the distinction that wikipedia does, that ethnopharmacology deals only with psychoactive drugs. For example, this highly influential paper considers all use of medicines to be pharmacology. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 13:43, 1 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Support. Ethnopharmacology is the more widely used term, and there doesn't seem to be any clear distinction between the concepts ethnopharmacy/ethnopharmacology cover. "Psychoactive" was added to this article in a recent revision. I do think there is a distinction between ethnomedicine and ethnopharmacology. Ethnomedicine is a broader term which includes ethnopharmacology (though I'd guess that most ethnomedicinal research falls under ethnopharmacology). Ethnopharmacology studies drugs. Ethnomedicine includes medical practices that don't necessarily involve drugs: culture-bound syndromes, shamanic healing rituals, some forms of surgery (e.g. trepanation), massage, acupuncture, steam baths, specialized diets (though the distinction between food & drugs is murky at times), among many other things. Plantdrew (talk) 23:10, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Based on the consensus above, I have merged these two articles. LT90001 (talk) 12:58, 26 August 2013 (UTC)