Importance of Medicinal Plants

Dr. Devarkar Vinod Devidas

Head, Department of Botany
Shri Chhatrapati Shivaji College, Omerga
Dist. 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

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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 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

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 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.
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,
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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 19th
century and early 20th century. Medicinal herbs now constitute the most
rapidly growing segment of the total US 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

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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.

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.

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 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/ Botanical Name Family Vernacular
Diseases Na
me
Diabetes Allium cepa Liliaceae Onion, Pyas,
Kanda
Brassica oleracea Brassicaceae Cabbage,
Pattakobi
Gymnima sylvestre Asclepiadace Gudmar
ae
Trigonella phoenum- Fabaceae Methi
graeceum
Tinospora cordifolia Menispermac Gulvel
eae
Mucuna pruriens Fabaceae Khaj Kuhiri
Catharanthus roseus Apocynaceae Sadaphuli
Syzigium cumini Myrtaceae
Heart Terminalia arjuna Combratacea Arjun
diseases e
Terminalia chebula Combratacea Hirda
e

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 Urginia indica Liliaceae Jangli/ kadu
kanda
Calatropis procera Asclepiadace Ruchki, Rui
ae
Aegle marmelos Rutaceae Bel
Ocimum sanctum Lamiaceae Tulsi
Thevetia nerifolia Apocynaceae Bitti
Brain/Memory Bacopa monierii Scrophulariac Neerbramhi
Functions eae
Evolvulus alsinoides Convolvulace Shankhpushpi
ae
Centella asiatica Centellaceae Bramhi
Withania somnifera Solanaceae Ashwagandha
Liver dis- Phyllanthus niruri Euphorbiacea Bhui Aoli
functioning e
Tephrosia purpurea Fabaceae Unhali/Dronpu
shpi
Andrographis paniculata Acanthaceae Kade
Chirayata
Eclipta alba Asteraceae Maka/Bhringra
j
Solanum nigrum Solanaceae Kamuni
Boerhavia diffusa Nyctaginacea Punarnava
e
Tinospora cordifolia Menispermac Gulvel
eae
For Vitality Withania somnifera Solanaceae Ashwagandha
Vitex negundo Verbenaceae Nirgudi
Chlorophytum Liliaceae Saphed Musali
tuberosum
Asparagus racemosus Liliaceae Shatavari
Brassica oleracea Brassicaceae Patta Kobi
Asthma/ Piper longum Piperaceae Lendi Pimpli
Allergy Adhatoda zeylanica Acanthaceae Adulsa
Piper nigrum Piperaceae Meeri
Calatropis procrera Asclepiadace Ruchki
ae
Zingiber officinale Zingiberacea Adrak
e
Acacia arabica Mimosaceae Bahul
Ocimum sanctum Lamiaceae Tulasi
Datura metel Solanaceae Kala Dhotra
Alstonia scholaris Apocynaceae Saptparni

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 Anti-fertility Azdirachta indica Meliaceae Neem
Butea monosperma Fabaceae Palash
Carica papaya Caricaceae Papaya
Musa paradisica Musaceae Jangli keli
Datura metel Solanaceae Kala Dhotra
Tectona grandis Verbenaceae Sagwan
Balanites aegiptica Balanitaceae Hinganbet
Anti- Terminalia arjuna Combratacea Arjuna
Cholesterol & e
Fat Plumbago zeylanica Plumbaginac Isabgol
eae
Allium sativum Liliaceae Lahsun
Allium cepa Liliaceae Pyas/ Kanda
Anti- Cancer Catharanthus roseus Apocynaceae Sadafuli
Bauhinia purpurea Caesalpiniace Kanchan
ae
Celastrus paniculatus Celastraceae Malkanguni
Arjemone mexicana Papaveracea Satyanashi
e
Antioxidants Daccus carota Apiaceae Gajar
Apium graveolens Apiaceae Ajwain. Oa
Brassica oleracea Brassicaceae Patta & Ful
kobi
Curcuma domestica Zingiberacea Haladi
e
Vitis vinifera Vitaceae Grape seeds
Citrus limon Rutaceae Kagaji Nimbu
Anti-bacterial, Azadirachta indica Meliaceae Neem
Anti-fungal, Ocimum sanctum Lamiaceae Tulasi
Anti-viral, Moringa oleifera Moringaceae Shevaga
Anti- Cassia fistula Caesalpiniace Amaltash
protozoan ae
Curcuma Zingiberacea Jangali Haldi
pseudomontana e
Helicteris isora Sterculiaceae Muradseng