Healing with medicinal plants is as old as mankind itself. The connection between man and his search for drugs in nature dates from the far past, of which there is ample evidence from various sources: written documents, preserved monuments, and even original plant medicines. Awareness of medicinal plants usage is a result of the many years of struggles against illnesses due to which man learned to pursue drugs in barks, seeds, fruit bodies, and other parts of the plants. Contemporary science has acknowledged their active action, and it has included in modern pharmacotherapy a range of drugs of plant origin, known by ancient civilizations and used throughout the millennia. The knowledge of the development of ideas related to the usage of medicinal plants as well as the evolution of awareness has increased the ability of pharmacists and physicians to respond to the challenges that have emerged with the spreading of professional services in facilitation of man's life.

At the time when antibiotics and other pharmacy products did not exist, a bulb of garlic itself represented a whole pharmacy industry due to the broad spectrum of effects. Most different suppositions involving this herb are mentioned; some of them were so pointless that they disappeared in time, but some of them have remained until the present days. The garlic was given different names that are still in use such as ‘Russian penicillin’, ‘natural antibiotic’, ‘vegetable viagra’, ‘plant talisman’, ‘rustic's theriac’, ‘snake grass’ etc. Presentation of the development of ideas associated with garlic and the evolution of the notions increased the ability of the pharmacists and physicians to respond to the challenges of their professional services in facilitating human life.

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Analyzes seven kinds of edible wild Macedonian mushrooms for their total dietary fibre (TDF) content, according to the official Association of Official Analytical Chemists (AOAC) method for plants as well as according to Hackman’s method for material of animal origin. Elemental analysis (C, H, N) of TDF procedures was performed in order to confirm the uniformity of the isolated products. The TDF contents of the mushrooms as measured by the AOAC method (8.71 per cent dry wt.) were considerably greater than those determined using the Hackman method (5.53 per cent dry wt.). Two products were isolated, both with C and H contents very similar to chitin and cellulose. These products differ from cellulose as they contain N. The infra‐red (IR) spectra of the TDF isolates obtained according to both the applied methods were very similar to the IR spectrum of chitin. In all spectra cellulose is missing.