Importance of Medicinal PlantsDr. Devarkar Vinod Devidas

Head, Department of BotanyShri Chhatrapati Shivaji College, OmergaDist. Osmanabad Pin-413606 (MS) INDIA

devarkar28@gmail.com

History

Man in his struggle for life (fulfillment of basic necessities and to have good health) has always turned to nature i.e. to the plants. There is no culture on this planet that has not made use of plants for physical, emotional and spiritual needs of human life. Plants form an integral part of any society, any time. Various pathies like Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani, Homeopathy, Naturopathy, Allopathy, etc. using innumerable plant species for curing human ailments and diseases. The WHO took note of the role that “Traditional Medicine” can play in the extension of health services particularly in the remote areas. In 1997, it passed a resolution (WHO 30.49) urging interested governments to give “ adequate importance to the utilization of their traditional systems of medicine with appropriate regulations. The herbal medicines of ancient times practiced by the Assyrians (4000 BC), Sumerians (3500 BC), Indians (3500 BC), Chinese (3000 BC) and Egyptians (2500 BC), etc.

Ayurveda is the ancient (6000-3500 BC) Indian system of healthcare and longevity. Though we don’t have in-depth knowledge about the period of Ayurveda and itdoes authors, we Indians, strongly believe in the information available about Ayurveda. Around 1050 plants are currently used in the various ayurvedic preparations. Ayurveda has a vast literature in Sanskrit and various Indian languages covering various aspects of diseases, therapeutics and pharmacy. The earliest references to medicinal plants are found in Rig-Veda and Atharva-Veda, dating back to the fourth millennium BC. Charak Samhita (3500 BC) is the first recorded treatise, fully devoted to concepts and practice of Ayurveda. It listed 526 plants and plant products for use in the medicine. Sushrut Samhita (2500 BC) has special emphasis on the surgery. It describes 395 medicinal plants; 57 drugs of animal origin; 64 mineral and metals as therapeutic agents. Another important authority of Ayurveda is Vagbhatta of Sindh (presently in Pakistan), who practiced around 7th century AD. His work Ashtang Hridayam is considered unrivalled for the principles and practice of the medicine. The last celebrated writer on Hindu medicine was Bhav Mishra of Magadha, whose treatise Bhav-Prakash is written around 1550, is held in high esteem by modern Ayurvedic practitioners for its descriptions of about 470 medicinal plants. Apart from these many Nighantu Granths were written between 7th and 16th

centuries. Ayurvedic texts were much respected in the neighbouring countries. They were

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translated in various languages eg. Greek (300 BC), Tibetan & Chinese (300 AD), Persian & Arabic (700 AD). Kautilya’s Arthshastra (400 BC) makes mention of some food plants, can sustain hunger for long time i.e. up to a month.

Charak has mentioned about the International Conference held at that time entitled “ Adya Aantarrashtriya Vaidya Parishad” in his Book Charak Samhita, in first chapter. He also mentioned about the active participants like Rishi Angira, Rishi Jamadgni, Rishi Vashishtha, Rishi Kashyapa, Rishi Bhrigu, Rishi Agneya, Rishi Gautam, Rishi Sankhya, Rishi Pulastya, Rishi Narada, Rishi Asita, Rishi Agastya, Rishi Wandev, Rishi Markandeya, etc. Rishi Bharadwaj was on the Presidential Chair. Later on Rishi Bharadwaj had given Diksha to Punarvasu and Agneya. Agneya had given Diksha to Agnivesha, Bhade, Jatukarma, Parashara, Harit & Ksharpani. But history says that popularity & publicity to Ayurveda is given by mainly Agnivesha & Parashara.

Plant science was also studied from the viewpoint of betterment and behavior of plants themselves in ancient India. In Vrikshayurveda by Surpala, a scholar of 7th century, we can see how thoroughly the science of plant life has been studied. He advices about trees should be grown around a house and which should not be; he also describes the types of soils preferred by different trees, their propagation practices and method of planting. Like human beings, internal diseases of plants are also thought to be caused by tridosha i.e. cough, vata & pitta and describes the way to treat them. He has identified some indicator plants for the presence of ground water. Various granthas and the number of plants included in them are as follows -

Vedas 150 species

Charak Samhita 526 species

Sushrut Samhita 573 species

Ashtanga Hridayam 902 species

Chopra et. al. 3500 species

Jain S. K. 5000 species

Ethnobiological Report 7500 species

Ethnic Use of Plants

It was in later period of nineteenth century that studies regarding the botany of aborigines gradually gained some attention. Edward L. Palmer (1871-78) was one of the founder botanists to investigate the cultural significance of the plants to indigenous people. Steven Powers (1873-75) coined the term ‘Aboriginal Botany’ to include all forms of the vegetable world, which the aborigines used for medicine, food, textile, fabrics, ornaments, etc. John Harshberger (1895) first proposed the term Ethnobotany to apply to the study of plants used by the primitive and aboriginal people.

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Over 53 million tribals belonging to over 550 tribal communities that come under 227 linguistic groups inhabit the Indian subcontinent. They inhabit varied geographic and climatic zones of the country.

Being with nature for centuries or better to say – thousands of the years, the tribals have acquired unique knowledge about the use of wild flora and fauna. Since they lived mostly as isolated societies, their knowledge is not known to the outside world. Today utilization of forest resources has assumed the form of exploitation and over-exploitation, resulting in the depletion of resources and degradation of the forests.

Need to document the oral knowledge of the tribals was recognized by many working in different fields like botany, forestry, health, environment, tribal upliftment programmes, etc. Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) also realized the need for such documentation and launched an All India Coordinated Research Project on Ethnobiology in 1982, involving 24 research centers in the country. First two phases of the project has been completed and the project is still ongoing. The out come of the project work is fantastic. Over 9500 wild plant species, used by the tribals for meeting their varied requirements, have been recorded. Still there remains to be much more done about the botany of aborigines. It will not be surprising if all the 16000 plant species of Indian angiospermic flora turn out to be useful for one or the other purpose. This reminds the saying of Rhishis “Naasti Moolam Anaushadhim” (No plant is non-medicinal).

Recent Works

Rich heritage of Indian system of herbal medicine had caught the attention of West since the beginning of the colonial days. Garcia da Orta, the personal physician of the Portuguese governor in India, published his colloquies on the simple and common drugs of India in 1963. Henrich Adrian van Rheede & Tot Drakestaein, the Dutch Governor of Cochin, with the help of Four Indian scholars – Ranga Swami, Appu Bhattan, Vinayak Pandithan and Itty Atchutan, published 12 volume work on Kerala Medicinal Plants (1678-1703). Amongst Indian authors working on Indian Medicinal Plants, the most remarkable work has been done by K. M. Nadkarni (1908), Kirtikar & Basu (1918), and Chopra et. al. (1956). Shivarajan & Balchandran (1994) have given good account of medicinal plants. Recently Arya Vaidya Sala, Kottakal (Kerala) has published an exhaustive work that running in 5 volumes, dealing with 500 key species (Ed. Warrier P. K. et al 1994-96). Naik (1998) has noted more than 500 plants from Marathwada that are used as medicinal plants.

Value of Medicinal Plants

The use of medicinal herbs in United States was quite common in 19 th century and early 20th century. Medicinal herbs now constitute the most rapidly growing segment of the total US

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pharmaceutical market. Botanical products are sold in the United States as dietary supplements or ethnic medicines. It has become a multibillion-dollar industry. This has made scientists and researchers aware of the situation about the status of the medicinal herbs.

The therapeutic effects of the formulations with multiple ingredients are possibly due to compound effect of a number of compounds. It is also possible that the active compounds when isolated in pure form, although active may be very toxic. But in the natural form, it is in association with other compounds either derived from the same plant or the other plants or other materials in the formulations, the toxic effect is either minimized or becomes absolutely non-toxic.

India is earning tremendous revenue by exporting medicinal plants and their products. The majority of rural households use plants found in the local environment for managing their primary health needs. If one fixes the price on the use value in terms of collection cost i.e. Rs. 100 X 100 million (No. of Households) it will go Rs. 10 billion. Therefore it appears that the value of plants used by the Indian villagers is perhaps more than the value of medicinal plants utilized by the industry in India as well as the value of plants that are exported.

Authentication of Medicinal plants

Sanskrit is the mother of all the languages evolved throughout the world. Most of the literature related to the Veda and Ayurveda is published in Sanskrit only. When we search for the vernacular names of the medicinal plants, we may find many vernacular names for the same plant or same vernacular name for many plants, as India is multilingual nation. It may lead into confusion and wrong plant can be used in the preparation of drug. Therefore, need for authentication of medicinal plants is the prime need of the day. Justice to this job of authentication of medicinal plants can be given by botanists only and especially by taxonomists. Growing concern towards harmful effects of synthetic drugs on human health warrants double responsibility on herbalists, botanists and taxonomists.

Identification and authentication of the medicinal plants can be done with the help of many characters such as morphological, anatomical, chemical, etc. Use of any drug largely designated by the Morphologists based on the organelles, which are under use. They can be named and classified as Root, tubers, rhizomes, bark, wood, legumes, fruits, etc. Similarly a Phytochemist – a chemist looking to the natural products irrespective of the plants parts – looks at chemical constituents that may therapeutically active or inactive principles such as alkaloids, glycosides, steroidal glycosides, saponine glycosides, anthracene glycosides, cyanogenic glycosides, resinous glycosides, sugars, tannins, volatile oils, lipids, waxes, gums, resins, vitamins, amino acids, balsams, bitter principles, organic acids, carbohydrates, starch grains, etc. thus, for authentication of the drugs or medicinal plants extensive research and hard work is necessary.

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Conservation of Medicinal Wealth

Conservation of the medicinal plants is must due to various reasons. The ethnic utilization of the medicinal plants is absolutely tremendous. Everywhere, every 100 Km the local people have made independent appraisal of their local resources. To study the pharmacology of over 7000 plants, it makes take thousands of the years to do so. Over 15000 medicines are present of herbal formulations for a range of ailments – from common cold to chronic conditions.

There is very interesting relationship between biodiversity and cultural diversity in the area of medicinal plants that is being lost equally because of the loss of biodiversity associated with it also, of the natural habitat and the various pressures that generally on biodiversity. The utilization of medicinal plants by human is being continued since long back. But the exploitation in these days is tremendous as the belief on the herbal drugs is increasing day by day. Side effects by the allopathic drugs are the main reason for that.

Every species has its importance in its ecosystem as wild plant or animal and it can provide new genetic material for improvement. Economically important plants were over exploited to meet the demand of growing population throughout the globe and resulted in the drastic decline in the size of their populations. Some species have already become extinct and there are many facing danger of extinction.

Many factors both natural and man-made have been responsible for limiting the distribution of and causing them to become rare or even extinct. Major causes of biodiversity losses are development pressure (construction, forest based industries, hydel/irrigation projects, mining, oil drilling, pollution, resource extraction and road and transport), encroachment (agriculture, expansion of forest villages, fishery, habitat depletion, horticulture, monoculture, forestry, new settlements, shifting cultivation, etc.), exploitation (collections made by scientists/institutions, firewood, food, trading for money, poaching, smuggling of timber/forest produce, medicinal plants, etc.). Therefore, the conservation of the medicinal plants is on main agenda of many governments. Conservation practices are functioning well in both ways i.e. In Situ & Ex Situ.

Common plants for Common Problems

Ailments/ Diseases Botanical Name Family Vernacular NameDiabetes Allium cepa Liliaceae Onion, Pyas, Kanda

Brassica oleracea Brassicaceae Cabbage, PattakobiGymnima sylvestre Asclepiadaceae GudmarTrigonella phoenum-graeceum Fabaceae Methi

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Tinospora cordifolia Menispermaceae GulvelMucuna pruriens Fabaceae Khaj KuhiriCatharanthus roseus Apocynaceae SadaphuliSyzigium cumini Myrtaceae

Heart diseases Terminalia arjuna Combrataceae ArjunTerminalia chebula Combrataceae HirdaUrginia indica Liliaceae Jangli/ kadu kandaCalatropis procera Asclepiadaceae Ruchki, RuiAegle marmelos Rutaceae BelOcimum sanctum Lamiaceae TulsiThevetia nerifolia Apocynaceae Bitti

Brain/Memory Functions

Bacopa monierii Scrophulariaceae NeerbramhiEvolvulus alsinoides Convolvulaceae ShankhpushpiCentella asiatica Centellaceae BramhiWithania somnifera Solanaceae Ashwagandha

Liver dis-functioning

Phyllanthus niruri Euphorbiaceae Bhui AoliTephrosia purpurea Fabaceae Unhali/DronpushpiAndrographis paniculata Acanthaceae Kade ChirayataEclipta alba Asteraceae Maka/BhringrajSolanum nigrum Solanaceae KamuniBoerhavia diffusa Nyctaginaceae PunarnavaTinospora cordifolia Menispermaceae Gulvel

For Vitality Withania somnifera Solanaceae AshwagandhaVitex negundo Verbenaceae NirgudiChlorophytum tuberosum Liliaceae Saphed MusaliAsparagus racemosus Liliaceae ShatavariBrassica oleracea Brassicaceae Patta Kobi

Asthma/ Allergy Piper longum Piperaceae Lendi PimpliAdhatoda zeylanica Acanthaceae AdulsaPiper nigrum Piperaceae MeeriCalatropis procrera Asclepiadaceae RuchkiZingiber officinale Zingiberaceae AdrakAcacia arabica Mimosaceae BahulOcimum sanctum Lamiaceae TulasiDatura metel Solanaceae Kala DhotraAlstonia scholaris Apocynaceae Saptparni

Anti-fertility Azdirachta indica Meliaceae Neem

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Butea monosperma Fabaceae PalashCarica papaya Caricaceae PapayaMusa paradisica Musaceae Jangli keliDatura metel Solanaceae Kala DhotraTectona grandis Verbenaceae SagwanBalanites aegiptica Balanitaceae Hinganbet

Anti-Cholesterol & Fat

Terminalia arjuna Combrataceae ArjunaPlumbago zeylanica Plumbaginaceae IsabgolAllium sativum Liliaceae LahsunAllium cepa Liliaceae Pyas/ Kanda

Anti- Cancer Catharanthus roseus Apocynaceae SadafuliBauhinia purpurea Caesalpiniaceae KanchanCelastrus paniculatus Celastraceae MalkanguniArjemone mexicana Papaveraceae Satyanashi

Antioxidants Daccus carota Apiaceae GajarApium graveolens Apiaceae Ajwain. OaBrassica oleracea Brassicaceae Patta & Ful kobiCurcuma domestica Zingiberaceae HaladiVitis vinifera Vitaceae Grape seedsCitrus limon Rutaceae Kagaji Nimbu

Anti-bacterial, Anti-fungal, Anti-

viral, Anti-protozoan

Azadirachta indica Meliaceae NeemOcimum sanctum Lamiaceae TulasiMoringa oleifera Moringaceae ShevagaCassia fistula Caesalpiniaceae AmaltashCurcuma pseudomontana Zingiberaceae Jangali HaldiHelicteris isora Sterculiaceae Muradseng

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