indian medicinal plants as a source of therapeutic - BRT Publishers

Int. J Bioscience Res. December 2012 Issue 1 Vol. 1
INTRODUCTION
Herbal medicines are assumed to be of great
importance in the primary healthcare of
individuals and local communities in many
developing countries (Ghosh 2003). Historians
from all around the world have produced
evidence to show that apparently all primitive
people used herbs often in a sophisticated way
(Gilani and Atta-ur-Rahman 2005). Medicinal
components from plants play an important role
in conventional Western medicine. The
traditional medicine all over the world is
nowadays revalued by an extensive study of
results of research on different plant species
and their therapeutic principles (Scartezzini and
Speroni 2000). Interest in medicinal plants has
been fuelled by the rising costs of prescription
drugs in the maintenance of personal health
and well-being, and the bioprospecting of new
plant-derived drugs (Hoareau and DaSilva
1999).
Infectious diseases caused by bacteria,
fungi, viruses and parasites are still a major
threat to public health, despite the tremendous
progress in human medicine. Their impact is
particularly large in developing countries due to
the relative unavailability of medicines and the
emergence of widespread drug resistance
(Okeke et al., 2005). Historically, all medicinal
preparations were derived from plants,
whether in the simple form of plant parts or in
the more complex form of crude extracts,
mixtures, etc. The vast majority of people on
this planet still rely on their traditional materia
medica for their everyday healthcare needs.
Folk medicines are gaining great importance as
information sources on traditional medicinal
plants. Many commercially proven drugs used
in modern medicine were initially tried in crude
form in traditional or folk healing practices, or
for other purposes that suggested potentially
useful biological activity.
BIOLOGICAL ACTIVITY OF MEDICINAL PLANTS
Medicinal plants are the important part of
indigenous pharmaceutical systems. According
to the World Health Organization (WHO), about
65–80% of the world’s population in developing
countries, due to the poverty and lack of access
to modern medicine, depend essentially on
plants for their primary healthcare (Calixto
2005). In recent years, use of ethnobotanical
information in medicinal plant research has
gained considerable attention in segments of
the scientific community (Heinrich 2000). Even
today, in most of the rural areas, people are
depending on local traditional healing systems
for their primary health care. Since, traditional
medicinal practice is the cheapest and safest
method adopted in all countries of the world
especially in developing countries.
There are hundreds of drugs and
biologically active compounds developed from
the traditional medicinal plants, a few of which
are mentioned here; the antispasmodic agent
vasicin isolated from Justicia adhatoda,
anticancer agents such as vincristine,
vinblastine and D-tubocurarine isolated from
Catharanthus roseus (Gurib-Fakim 2006),
antibacterial agents isolated from Diospyros
melanoxylon (Mallavadhani et al., 1998),
antimalarial agent isolated from Sida acuta
(Karou et al., 2006), steroid and lancamarone
with cardiotonic properties, lantamine with
antipyretic and antispasmodic properties from
Lantana camara (Ghisalberti 2000),
antimicrobial agents isolated from Acorus
calamus (Chowdhury et al., 1993), antiviral,
antibacterial and anti-inflammatory agents
isolated from Urtica dioica (Harborne and
Buxter 1993), anticancer agents isolated from
Aloe vera, Allium sativum, Andrographis
paniculata, Curcuma longa, Moringa oleifera,
Phyllanthus amarus, Piper longum, Semecarpus
anacardium, Tinospora cordifolia and
Withanica somnifera (Balachandran and
Govindarajan 2005), promising and potent
antimalarial drug artemisinin isolated from
Artemesia annua (Dhingra et al., 2000). A large
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