How did we originally get drugs?

• A. By extracting them from plants
• B. By mining minerals
• C. By growing bacteria
• D. By discovering new planets

Answer: (A)

At the start, medicines came from plants. People noticed that certain herbs and plant parts helped with illness, so they used preparations like teas, poultices, or extracts. Over time, scientists learned to isolate the active chemicals inside those plants and turn them into standardized drugs. This plant-based extraction approach produced many of the first and most important medicines—things like morphine from opium poppy, digitalis from foxglove, and compounds related to aspirin from willow bark. While later on other sources such as microbes and minerals contributed new drugs, the origin of most early medicines was simply taking useful compounds out of plants. The other options don’t fit because mining minerals, growing bacteria, or discovering planets aren’t how the first drugs were obtained.