Contemporary Folk Medicines of India to Combat Human and Veterinary Diseases and Conditions

Ethno-medicines have gained new dimensions in the present days through phyto-chemical research in India and abroad. Information on medicinal plants and folk drugs recorded during fieldwork is now being subjected to investigation in the search for new biodynamic compounds of therapeutic value. The curative properties of plants acquired by trial and error over centuries in "Human Laboratories" of tribals hold high esteem all over the globe. The present study is based on this rationale and provides first-hand information on some 1120 contemporary ethno-pharmacological prescriptions involving 444 taxa of medicinal plants collected and identified from certain rich tribal inhabited forest zones of the country between 1971-1997.