The chemical environment, and the natural resources available in which our species has evolved has been crucial for the establishment of our medical practices. Here we present a brief review of the insights provided by chemical ecology to understand the evolution of medical practices since ancestral hominids to modern humans, as well as their implications for the search for new drugs of natural origin. Like for any other mammal, ecological and evolutionary processes have shaped how we relate to plant and animal chemicals, whether to avoid, transform and/or explore these compounds according to our needs. In addition, culture has played a key role in the way these chemicals are perceived by people and how they can be processed by different modes of use for ingestion, as well as providing cultural significance for their use (in medicine, for example) or their rejection altogether.

中文翻译：

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现代和早期人类使用药用植物的化学生态学方法

我们的物种进化所处的化学环境和可用的自然资源对于建立我们的医学实践至关重要。在这里，我们简要介绍化学生态学所提供的见解，以了解祖先人类起源于现代人类以来医学实践的发展，以及它们对寻找自然新药的影响。与其他任何哺乳动物一样，生态和进化过程也决定了我们与动植物化学物质的关系，是否根据我们的需要避免，转化和/或探索这些化合物。此外，文化在人们对这些化学物质的感知方式以及如何通过不同的摄取方式对其进行加工以及为其使用提供文化意义（在医学，