Plant drugs can be used as supplementary medicines in the symptomatic treatment of pulmonary diseases. Expectorant drugs are used in the treatment of mucostasis in bronchial asthma and chronic bronchitis. Certain drugs are administered in cases of respiratory tract diseases with mild bronchospasm. In cases of viral infections, patients are recommended to take drugs, which increase protection strenghts of organism. Certain plant bronchospasmolitic ingredients were used as source for semisynthetic or as a model for synthetic production of medicines in the treatment of bronchial asthma and other obstructive pulmonary diseases (ipratropium bromide is atropine derivative, disodium cromoglycate is khellin derivative). Today, ephedrine is only partly being produced synthetically, while it is still being isolated from plant material (various Ephedra species)
