Herbal Medicine Research Paper

The plant kingdom has served as an inexhaustible source of foods, useful drugs, additives, flavouring agents, lubricants, colouring agents, gums etc from times immemorial (Parikh et al., 2005). The therapeutic power of herbs had been recognized since prehistoric age of the earth, mankind and herbal medicine is one of the oldest practiced professions (Kambizi and Afolayan, 2001). Medicinal plants form the indigenous knowledge/technology and have been passed on to us over centuries and represent a rich source of antimicrobial agents with global importance. It is estimated that around 70,000 plant species, from lichens to tall trees, have been used as raw material for some potent and powerful drugs, although synthetic drugs and antibiotics brought

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

2.1 MEDICINAL PLANTS

Herbal Medicine is defined as a branch of science in which plant based therapies are used to cure diseases. Herbal medicine was supposed to be primary healthcare system in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century as at that time antibiotics or analgesics were not discovered. But herbal medicine gradually lose its popularity (Singh, 2007), with the advent of allopathic modern system of medicine, based on the quick and sharp therapeutic actions of synthetic drugs.

Now there has been revert in universal trend from synthetic to herbal medicine, which can be said “Return to Nature”. Medicinal plants have been known for millennia and are highly esteemed all over the world as a rich source of therapeutic agents for the prevention of diseases and cure of ailments (Sharma et al., 2008). The search for eternal health, longevity and remedies to relieve pain, early man explored his immediate natural surroundings which led to the use of many plants, animal products, minerals etc. and the development of a variety of therapeutic agents (Nair and Chanda,

 Effectiveness of plant medicines i.e. herbal products make a belief that they are safer/superior than the synthetic products.

 Taxonomic markers and models for the discovery of new synthetic compounds

 It is a movement towards self-medication in which patients’ believe that sometimes problem (disease) was not identified properly by the physicians. So, herbal medicines come out to be a good option and effective in the treatment of various diseases where modern medicines (synthetic drugs) have proven inadequate.

 The production, consumption and international trade in medicinal plants and phytomedicines are growing and expected to grow with quality, efficacy and safety in future with the development of science and technology.

 The preference of consumers for natural therapies leads to a greater interest in development of alternative medicines.

Investigations on the chemical and biological activities of plants during the past two centuries have yielded compounds for the development of modern synthetic organic chemistry as a major route for discovery of novel and more effective therapeutic agents (Nair et al.,