The rise of medicalization of plants in Brazil: A temporal perspective on vernacular names

Ethnopharmacological relevance: Brazilian plant species used in folk medicine have acquired several popular names related to commercial medicines in recent decades. This fact has directly effect to the medicalization process. Aim of the study: Evaluate the rise of medicalized popular names of medicinal plants in Brazil. Materials and methods: Medicalized popular names of medicinal plants were recorded from 314 ethnobotanical articles in eleven scientific journals published between 1980 and 2017. Results: The review included 141 ethnobotanical articles containing medicalized names from 314 articles consulted. The presence of medicalized names in Brazilian ethnobotanical studies has increased significantly since the 2000s. A total of 85 medicalized popular names were recorded according with phonetic and graphical similarity. The most cited medicalized names were Anador, Insulin, Terramycin, Vick, Novalgin and Penicillin. The prevalence of medicalized name citations in ethnobotanical surveys over non-medicalized names for several species indicates the existence of medicalized plant species. Conclusion: Since the 2000s, an increasing number of ethnobotanical studies revealed the appropriation of drug names by folk medicine through the changes of vernacular names of medicinal plants. This medicalization process is mostly related to the expansion of the Brazilian Unified Health System, pharmaceutical industry marketing and Non-Governmental Organizations in the last decades.