The 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine was awarded to Chinese Youyou Tu for her work on an antimalarial drug that she isolated from sweet wormwood (Artemisia annua L) and absinthe (Artemisia absinthium L) belonging to the genus of Artemisia. In this article we deal with the use of Artemisiae as medicinal plants through the ages, and several pharmacologically active compounds can be obtained from species of the genus Artemisia. We will particularly focus on two medicinally interesting species of Artemisiae - sweet wormwood and absinthe - as well as two pharmacologically significant compounds found in them, artemisin and thujone.