Talking about phytotherapy means talking about human history across all the past civilisations as man has always tried to use plants not only for food purposes but also for therapeutic reasons. Under phytotherapy we mean the care of some illnesess through the action of plant compound . The word phytotherapy comes from the greek word PHYTÓN = meaning plant and THERAPY.

A fresh or dry plant has :
Active principles : chemical compounds with a therapeutic effect;
Secondary substances: chemical substances that modify the action of the active principles stengthening or inhibiting them

Under the words: extracts , phytoderivates and phytocompounds, we mean all the compounds with a vegetal origin coming from whole fresh or dried plants or parts of them through a squeezing, distilling and exstracting process with suitable solvents.