The screening of medicinal plants traditionally used to treat ...

2The spread of traditional Chinese medicine to other continents hasundoubtedly contributed to the current popularity of herbal medicinethroughout the world. The ancient system of medicine is actually a practicaland holistic set of guides to maintain balance and harmony and to ensure along and happy life. In common with Western herbal teas and AfricanTraditional medicine, Chinese herbs are usually given in fixed mixtures of upto 20 herbs, which are carefully prepared according to traditional recipescontained in ancient compendia (Van Wyk and Wink 20(4).Today, medicinal plants play a great role in human health services worldwide.Many people in the modem world are turning to herbal medicine. Forexample, in the USA about 25% of all prescriptions dispensed in publicpharmacies in 1973 contained drugs extracted from higher plants and about64% of the total global population remains dependent on traditional medicinefor their healthcare needs (Wondimu et al., 2007). It is shown in manyliterature sources that India, Korea, Japan, China and Malaysia are theleading countries in the world using traditional medicines. For example inIndia, approximately 7500 medicinal plant species are traditionally used. It isreported that among 2000 drugs that have been used in India and Nepal,about 1500 are of plant origin (Wondimu et al., 2007).Popular interest in the use of medicinal plants has grown considerably in thesecond half of the 20 th century. Studies of the chemistry and pharmacology ofnatural products from many parts of the world has resulted in increasingconcern about the potential loss of biodiversity and the necessity ofguaranteeing the sustainable use of natural resources. Few studies havebeen designed to test hypotheses related to the knowledge and use ofmedicinal plants. Most studies have caused more interest in localcommunities to examine patterns of use and selection of folk medicines, thetransmission and erosion of folk knowledge and the influence of economicand social variables on plant use (De Albuquerque et al., 2007).The World Health Organization (WHO, 2003) incorporates studies oftraditional medicine practices in its diarrhoeal disease control program. It is