9 Traditional Medicine in Cuba: Experience in Developing Products based on Medicinal Plants Julio C. Escalona, 1 Renato Peres-Roses, 2 Jesús R. Rodriguez, 1 Claudio Laurido, 3 Raúl Vinet, 4 Ariadna Lafourcade, 1 Luisauris Jaimes 5 and José L. Martinez 6, * Introduction The use of medicinal plants is as old as the history of human beings. They set out to discover, use and convey knowledge that each of them had (Martinez and Marinoff 2008). The first text known of medicinal plants dates back to approximately 3000 BC, along with written evidence of civilizations such as China, India, North Africa and Greece, based mainly on the treatment of diseases, their description and categorization. For instance “The use of aloe leaves for burns” is one such specific pharmacological effect (Newall et al. 1996). The exploitation of medicinal and aromatic plants by man occurred in ancient times, as recorded in the historical evidence belonging to different civilizations and cultures that have been evolving on Earth (Subhaktha et al. 2006, Martinez and Marinoff 2008). Plants with medicinal properties were first used empirically for the cure of diseases afflicting man; they also differentiated the ones that cured to those which killed, knowledge passed down orally from generation to generation, because of lack of writing in these early phases of human evolution. Subsequently, when writing developed and with the appearance of papyrus, men began collecting information, recording the heritage of a few in societies in which it has traversed humanity until today (Marinoff 2002). For example, the Bible describes approximately 200 medicinal plants and also its applications (CLIE 1985, Duke 2008). 1 Facultad de Farmacia, Universidad de Oriente, Santiago de Cuba, Cuba. 2 Unidad de Farmacología y Farmacognosia, Universidad de Barcelona, España. 3 Facultad de Química y Biología, Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Santiago, Chile. 4 Facultad de Farmacia, Universidad de Valparaíso & CREAS, Valparaíso, Chile. 5 Facultad de Ciencias de la Educación, Universidad de Carabobo, Valencia, Venezuela. 6 Vicerrectoría de Investigación, Desarrollo e Innovación, Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Santiago, Chile. * Corresponding author: joseluis.martinez@usach.cl © 2016 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC