The History of Current Use of Plant Based Medicine in India

CHAPTER 1

Chapter-1. Introductio

1.1 General Introduction 2-5

1.2 Indian System Medicine 5-11

1.3 Herbal Drug Industry 12-13

1.4 Amaranthus 13-15

1.5 Selection of Plant 15-17

CHAPTER 1

1.1 GENERAL INTRODUCTION:

The history of phytotherapy is to trace the history of civilization itself. The discovery of the certain plants for their curative properties must have sprung from instinct. Traditional medicine is an evolutionary process as communities and individuals continue to discover new techniques to heal the aliment that can renovate into medical practices. We should credit our forefathers with the wisdom, which identified the species with medicinal properties. From time immemorial, plants, animals and minerals used to for the treatment of human diseases. Plants, in particular, have been the foundation of several traditional medicinal systems all over the world to provide humankind with new remedies for thousands of years and continue. Plant-based medicines are primarily dispensed in the form of crude form such as teas, tinctures and poultices, now provide as the foundation for novel drug invention.

In India, herbs have been traditionally used for human and veterinary health care and in the food and textile industry. Ninety percent of indigenous people known the local food resources were not document, to nutritional literature, trade, and cosmetics; but India has a special position in area of herbal medicines, since it is one of the few countries which are capable of cultivating most of the important plants used both in modern and traditional systems of medicine. India has rich flora due to wide variation in climate soil, altitude conditions. climate, soil, altitude/latitude and rich flora.

Throughout the...

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...h Africa leaf is used as an abortifacient43,44.

Amaranthus viridis Linn (Amaranthaceae), commonly called ‘Chilaka ThotaKura’ in Telugu, has been used in Indian and Nepalese traditional system to reduce labour pain and act an antipyretic32,45. The bruised leaves are directly applied to psoriasis, eczema and rashes by Negritos of Philippines42. Other ethnomedicinal uses are as vermifuge, diuretic anti-inflammatory agent, antirheumatic, antileprotic, antiulcer, analgesic, antiemetic, laxative, improvement of appetite, for the treatment of respiratory, eye problems, venereal diseases, , to treatment of asthma 32,46,47-53.

The selected three plants have no scientific data regarding pharmacognostic, phytochemical and pharmacological activities (antioxidant, alpha amylase inhibition assay, antipyretic, analagesic, anthelmentic, antimicrobial and laxative).