India was one of the pioneers in the development and practice of well documented indigenous systems of medicine, particularly Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani. For millennia, the Indian population have depended upon mostly plant based crude drugs for the treatment of a variety of ailments. Nevertheless, modern scientific attention paid to the Indian medicinal plants has been very inadequate and does not bring out their true potential. Compared, the South American, African and Chinese medicinal plants have been subjected to a more serious and well recognised scientific study.

Ayurveda has incorporated a very large number of plant species in the control of a variety of ailments of people and domestic animals. In addition to Charaka Samhitha and Sushrutha Samhitha, there is even a Nakula Samhitha dealing with animal husbandry. The medical systems of Siddha, Unani and Homeopathy, are also largely plant based, and use a number of Indian plants. The allopathic system still has a very considerable number of plant based drugs. Modern phytochemical and pharmacological studies have confirmed the therapeutic potential of many plant species used in the Ayurvedic and other formulations. Yet, the traditional systems and the plants used therein, are currently not widely popular in the country. In the context of providing efficient and inexpensive medicine to the masses, and to build up public confidence in indigenous medicine, it is necessary that the traditional medicine is evaluated in the light of current concepts and modern research in medicine and medical biochemistry. Such an effort will make the Indian traditional medicine acceptable country wide, at all social and economic levels. It is also the first step in making Indian systems internationally recognised and accepted.

The impetus for initiating action to realise the long term objective of international recognition and acceptance of the indigenous medical systems has been provided by the World Health Organisation (WHO) (Bannerman et al., 1983; Penso, 1980), the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) and the United Nations Industrial Development organisation (UNIDO), which have emphasised that:

a) more than 90 per cent of the world’s rural population particularly in South America, Africa, china and India are exclusively dependent upon herbalists and traditional healers for maintaining a reasonable level of health;

b) there is an urgent need for consolidating and protecting this invaluable heritage; and

c) it should be improved.

Consequently, there is certainly a revival of interest in medicinal plants the world over, but degree of the attention paid in different parts of the world to traditional medicine is not uniform, either in depth or spread, as also is the case within India.

In spite of all odds, India still continues to occupy a premier position in the use of drugs of plant origin.

THE WEALTH OF INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS

The source texts, the materia medicae and a variety of numerous other publications on the Indian indigenous systems of medicine reflect the country’s great wealth of medicinal plants. The richness of Indian medicinal plant wealth has also attracted the attention of western scientists a very long time ago, the first one being Garcia de Orta (1563), a reputed pharmacist, who adopted over a dozen of the Indian species into his personal materia medica. The Dutch, van Rheed, starting from 1678 to 1693, published 12 volumes of Hortus Malabaricus, containing descriptions of 791 species, illustrations of 742 species and information on medicinal and other uses of these plants of the Malabar region, compiled with the support and participation of the local population. This publication, which accounts for 691 modern taxa, is a land mark in Indian botany and medicinal plants, that appeared long before the Species Plantarum by Linnaeus (1753).

India has about 18,000 species of angiosperms, of which about 2,500 are considered as important sources of medicinal and aromatic chemical compounds. An equal number of species of other plant groups, the algae, fungi, lichens, bryophytes, pteridophytes and gymnosperms also have great therapeutic and industrial potential, which has not been realised. While the Indian Pharmacopoeia recognises only about 3 per cent of these species, drugs of plant origin are about 40 per cent in the listings of the Indian pharmacopoeia (Ayensu, 1986). Kapoor and Mitra (1979) estimated that about 540 plant species are in use in different formulations in India. These estimates appear to be quite off the mark, as indicated in different contexts, in this volume.

In view of the insufficient official recognition to the potentially useful medicinal plant wealth of India, Mohan Ram (1980) emphasised that

a) identifying new sources of drugs, enhancing their yield, substituting those being largely imported into India and promoting those having a high export potential; and

b) collection, collation and dissemination of information on these medicinal plants for research and utilisation,

are among the major urgent tasks to be undertaken in India.