Introduction To Medicinal Plants Biology Essay.
The stateis blessedwith richest repositories of medicinal and aromatic plants and moreoverwell-known for its diverse culture of human races. There is an age long intrinsic relationship between theethnicMeetei communityandmedicinal plants for the treatment of various primary health care ailments which remained.
Suggested citation: Cunningham, A.B. (1993). African medicinal plants: setting priorities at the interface between conservation and primary health care. People and Plants working paper 1. Paris. UNESCO. Author's address: A.B. Cunningham 84 Watkins Street - White Gum Valley, Fremantle 6162 Western Australia - Australia.
Medicinal plants are valuable resources for our health care system since ancient period. These natural herbs are an important source of drugs for alternative medicine systems. These systems include Ayurveda, homeopathy, Unani and even allopathy.
WHO has compiled a list of medicinal plants which are widely used in primary health care. In July 1996, a WHO scientific group involving 100 experts from various countries around the world adopted the list which includes 28 monographs of 28 medicinal plants originally prepared by the WHO Collaborating Centre for Traditional Medicine in Chicago, Illinois, United States of America.
The representative case studies of medicinal plant genome, phylogeny, and evolution are summarized to exemplify the expansion of knowledge pedigree and the paradigm shift to the omics-based approaches, which update our awareness about plant genome evolution and enable the molecular breeding of medicinal plants and the sustainable utilization of plant pharmaceutical resources.
CONTENTS ii CONTENTS Foreword iv Introduction v CHAPTER I Background Papers Inventory and documentation of medicinal plants in 14 Asia-Pacific countries 3-Pons BatugalRationale for conservation of medicinal plants 7-V Ramanatha Rao and RK AroraDatabase development for medicinal plants 23-Paul Quek and Lee Sok YoungProduction of medicinal plants in Asia 33-KR Chapman and N Chomchalow.
The lack of health care systems in rural areas forces local people to treat themselves, either by using medicinal plants or by buying high-cost medicine in the rural markets. In the rural areas, as a whole, people begin by treating themselves before going to a traditional practitioner or a modern doctor.