HISTORY AND CURRENT ISSUE IN HERBAL MEDICINE
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Dr Ashwathanarayana R Guest faculty Government First Grade College, Tumkur Email: jamadagni341@gmail.com Mob: 8073776024 |
In the evolution of man on the earth, plants play a vital role in his survival and existence. All the fauna directly or indirectly depends upon the plants for their food, shelter, and clothing. Herbal medicine discovery is an evolutionary process which played a vital role in the life of mankind in curing different ailments. The ancient man experimenting with the plants in curing various disorders and diseases.
The ancient human colonies were used many plants and their products not only for medicinal but also for arrow and dart poisoning for hunting, hallucinogens for ritual purpose, a stimulant for endurance, an anesthetic for pain relief etc and still the tribes were using the same. Medicinal plants, since time immemorial, have been used in all cultures as a source of medicine.
History of phytoremediation is also directly linked to the evolution of life itself. There is evidence that all the animal during the illness eat some medicines available to cure themselves, still we can observe dogs during illness used to eat grass and vomit after it.
In animal kingdom each and every animal have their own habitual territory with the knowledge of local plants as a food as well as a medicinal resource. For many centuries people practices herbal medicinal information before orthodox medicinal practices appeared. Experimenting trial and error methods with herbal formulations, herbalist piled the large database of medicinal plants in curing many disorders.
Plants have been extensively used from ancient times to cure diseases and to relieve pain. The first recorded use of plants as healing agents was documented in Lascaux caves paintings situated near France which is dated to approximately 12,000-26,000 B.C.
The Babylonians, ancient Hebrews, and Syrians have used many medicinal herbs also in the sculptures. From Egypt, there are records dating to 1,000 B.C. many of the medicinal plants used by physicians of that period, among which garlic, castor oil, coriander, mint, indigo, myrrh, opium, cannabis, aloes, cassia, and hemlock are prominent.
India from ancient times well known for its herbal medicine largest producer of medicinal plants and spices. Many Hindu literatures like Rigveda, Yajurveda, Samaveda, Atharvanaveda many medicinal herbal species were mentioned. Well-known Ayurvedic scholars of Indian medicinal history viz., Dhanvantari, Charak, Sushruta, Patanjali etc were used more than 1600 species of medicinal plants to cure many diseases. In Ayurvedic medicine, most of the medicinal formulation is of the combined mixture of several medicinal ingredients like bark, stem, leaf and root etc.
About 4000 plant species belong to more than 2000 genera were used in many folklores medicinal system in India. Indian folklore medicinal system is linked to its traditional religious beliefs so it is passed from one generation to the other generation. The ancient Indian education system offered free education for everyone so, people from China, Cambodia, Myanmar, Indonesia and Afghanistan etc. visited Indian Universities like Takshashika (700 BC) and Nalanda (500 BC) to learn Indian Traditional medicinal system.
Many indigenous herbal medicines such as Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani, Homeopathy, allopathy, Nati, Naturopathy etc. were serving of about 60% percent of the people in rural India. In India, approximately 60,000 known medicinal plant species were documented for its medicinal property belongs to nearly 400 families and 2500 genera, in which most of the species were belongs to the families of Rubiaceae, Euphorbiaceae, Fabaceae, Asteraceae, Lamiaceae, Caesalpiniaceae, Solanaceae, Phyllanthaceae, Rutaceae, Asclepiadaceae, Piperaceae, Apocynaceae, Liliaceae, Combretaceae, Poaceae, Acanthaceae and Rosaceae.
Numerous medicinal plants give excellent results when it is freshly harvested and some plants hold its effectiveness for long-lasting time and some were effective in combinational form as a crude extract and some were effective in its pure compound form, so, pre-clinical experiments should be more precise to get exact composition with recommended dose. In developing countries most of the people still depends upon the herbal medicine due to its effectiveness, less cytotoxic and safer to use.
Now a day’s drug adulteration is a major problem in medicinal plant market, some of the herbal drugs were adulterated with banned Chemical medicinal ingredients which cause adverse effects on the patients with the defamation of original brands. China facing major herbal drug adulteration problem and gets ban from the global market for 200 products. If this issue continues to increase in many countries majorly affects developing countries.
Since last few decades continuous efforts are being made to stop drug adulteration and interference of Counterfeit drugs. To maintain the medicinal plant products quality and purity through various standard technologies and Preclinical studies like Chromatographic, Spectroscopic, Biotechnology, Bioinformatics, Genomics, Proteomics, Metabolomics, Advanced Analytical Methods were employed. Isolation of bioactive compounds from the medicinal plants was cheaper and effective so, all the pharma industries in recent years targeted medicinal plants as an easy and effective way to get profit.
Ethnomedicine is become popular now days have an advantage over modern chemical synthetic drugs because herbal medicines were less toxic or non-toxic to human beings compared to the synthetic drugs which have side effects in temporary period or for prolonged periods. Proper and effective herbal drug formulation with scientific proof were needed to attract the people to trust on the herbal drug formulation along with good marketing strategies. The medicinal plants used in the local health traditions are gradually becoming extinct due to the developmental activities, population explosion and other anthropogenic reasons. In order to reverse this situation, domestication and mass cultivation of wild medicinal plants is essential with marketing route to get profit from it. Tissue culture and biotechnological research also provide enough support to enhance its medicinal qualities along with the prolonged preservation strategies.