Varieties of
reasons have been cited for the need for studying medicinal plants. Most of the
traditional knowledge about medicinal plants was in the form of oral knowledge
that had been lost with persistent invasions and cultural adaptations. There
was no uniform or standard procedure for maintaining the inventory of these
plants and the knowledge about their medicinal properties. There is a
prevalence of using plants and plant based products in various contemporary and
traditional systems of medicines, without any written documentation or regulation.
Therefore, it is essential that such uses of natural products be documented andstudied for systematic regulation and wide-spread application. The leads for a
significant number of modern synthetic drugs have originated from isolated
plant ingredients, as the search for newer entities begins from either
derivatising existing drugs or from traditional contemporary medicinal systems.
Therefore, it is essential that research on phytochemistry of plants used
extensively in traditional medicines is carried out. Many authors have
emphasized the value of conducting broad ethnobotanical, ethnopharmacological,
and clinical therapeutic research on medicinal plants. The giant studies made
by analytical and synthetic chemistry, have immensely contributed to the developmentof the science or biomedicine that has achieved miracles in medical practice.
Unfortunately, on the one hand it resulted in sky-rocketing medical cost
putting it beyond the reach of the vast majority of the world’s population and
on the other has not been able to cure all the sickness in the World.
Scientific (or standard) medicine generally serves only a minority (about 30 to
35 percent) of the total population in the developing countries. The rest of
the population attends to its health needs through the traditional medicine,
which is essentially based on the use of easily accessible lowcost medicinal
plants. Several considerations make the use of medicinal plants desirable.
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