| MadSci Network: Environment/Ecology |
I hope you are willing to do a good bit of research on your own. All I can do is to provide some starting points for such a research. Mostly I cite from EO Wilson, The diversity of life, Penguin Science 1993 as I am not a specialist in Botanics or Medicine (mines are insects).
In the USA a quarter of all prescriptions are substances from plants (another 13% from micro-organisms and 3% from animals). Even salicylic acid (painkiller, e.g. in Aspirin) originally came from a plant (Filipendula ulmaria). Certainly there is much more potential. Scientists examined fewer than 3% of the flowering plants of the world (5000 out of 220000) for alkaloids. Moreover it has been done in a very quick and crude way. Alkaloids are still the best investigated class of interesting chemicals.
Most substances are found by mere chance. For example alkaloids from Rosy periwinkle (Catharanthus roseus, Madagascar) investigated for its antidiuretic properties. The plant turned out to contain a very effective drug against certain cancers.
Some examples (not necessarily from rain forest - if you really need to know that you will have to check):
Drug Plant source Use Bromelain Pineapple (ananas comosus) inflammation Caffeine Tea stimulant on CNS Cocaine Coca(Erythroxylon coca) anaesthetic Codeine Opium poppy (Papaver somniferum) analgesic Diosgenin Yams contraceptive Indicine N-oxide Heliotropium indicum anticancer Morphine Opium poppy (Papaver somniferum) analgesic Quinine Yellow cinchona (C. ledgeriana) antimalaria Vinblastine Rosy periwinkle (C. roseus) anticancerAs still many, many people get sick from malnutrition and hunger also here is immense potential. Perhaps 30000 species of plants have edible parts. However, just 20 species provide 90% of the world's food. Therefore, most species are unused - but not unusable.
Some books and articles to start your research:
Thomas Eisner (1990) Prospecting for natures's chemical riches, Issues in Science and Technology, Vol. 6 (2), pp. 31-34 (about alkaloids)
Chris Hails (1989) The Importance of Biological Diversity, Gland, World Wide Fund for Nature (information on the natural origins of medicines used in the USA)
NR Farnsworth (1989) Screening Plants for New Medicines, in: EO Wilson, FM Peter (editors), Biodiversity Washington DC, National Academy Press (most complete listings known to me)
Soejarto DD, Farnsworth NR (1989) Tropical Rain Forests: potential Source of New Drugs?, Perspectives in Biology and Medicine Vol. 32 (2) pp. 244-256
I have not found any really convincing WWW page on this topic. If you do a search under "rain forest" and "drug" you get some bits and pieces but also quite a lot of "new age" related stuff. What I have read there I personally regard as not scientific. May be you can provide a good WWW page in the end.
Best wishes and God bless
Jurgen