Medicinal plants By Mr Allah Dad Khan Visiting Professor the University of Agriculture Peshawar Pakistan

2. Medicinal Plants: Economic
Perspective and Recent
Developments
By Mr. Allah Dad Khan

3. Importance
 Medicinal plants are an integral part of our health care system. The therapeutic
potential of plants and plant based product are recognized throughout the world.
Globally.
 Different systems of treatment exist such as Allopathic, Homeopathic, Ayurverdic,
Chinese system of treatment etc.
 The developed communities have their own Materia Medica, compiling
comprehensive information about various plants used for therapeutic purposes

4. Situation
 The international herbal trade market is revolving around China and Indo-Pak while
the total global herbal market of plant-based drugs has been estimated as $ 25-30
billion annually.
 The modern medical setup recognizing and moving to a system based on the
combination of orthodox and natural therapies for the effective treatment of
disorders.

5. Traditional medicine
 A traditional health care practice of indigenous people pertaining to human health
is termed as Ethnomedicine. The knowledge of certain herbs, animals and minerals
that have curative and palliative effects were transmitted from one generation to
another and it is the outcome of bold experimentation through trial and error
method over hundreds of years.
 Ethnomedicine is the mother of all other systems of medicine such as Ayurveda,
Siddha, Unani, Nature cure and even modern medicine. The traditional herbalists
are part and parcel of the community and are often familiar with the details of each
family and its environs, so that they are in a better position to deal with their day-
to-day problems. In fact the native healers take care of the common ailments of the
folk in their home .

6. The Knowledge about efficacy of Herbal medicines
 The traditional medicinal knowledge is thought to be within every one’s reach and
does not require any study or training to practice it. In some families almost all the
members are acquainted with some part or other of herbal remedies.
 The traditional healers specialize in particular areas of their profession. Thus we find
some medical practitioners are expert in bone setting, wound healing, poisonous
bites, neurological disorders, etc. and some others in spiritual healing, especially
the use of incantations while others combine both in their treatment
 It is important to note that there is no doubt about the efficacy of herbal medicine
among its users. Rural and urban poor people in India rely on herbal remedies
since these are within their reach. In fact in remote areas this is the only source of
health care available.

7. Status of traditional medicine in the world
 Folklorists, anthropologists and medical scientists alike are studying traditional
medicine or ethnomedicine in some countries like Russia, Africa and few European
countries
 In Russia particularly serious attempts have been made in the post revolution
period to scientifically investigate the natural and herbal remedies of native
medicine. It is understood that in Russia if a good home remedy is found for any
serious ailment it is usually publicized and praised at the highest medical level. This
is indeed a highly commendable trend not so evident in other countries.

8. China and Herbs
 China for example is able to provide adequate health care coverage for its vast
urban and rural population due to amalgamation of traditional health care system
with modern medicine.
 The inability of the poor countries to develop their own legacy of indigenous
medicinal knowledge is because it is denied official recognition. This is partly
responsible for the current inadequate health care in underdeveloped countries.
 Modern health care is not equitably provided due to financial limitations and
majority of the people lack access to adequate health care

9. Traditional medicinal contributions to primary health care
 In this context the contribution made by the traditional medicine to modern system of medicine
is worth noting. The well-established drugs given in Table are among dozens that have been
developed by the scientists after analysing the chemical constituents of plants traditionally used
by tribals and villagers.
 For instance, researchers isolated reserpine in 1952 from the herb Rauvolfia serpentina that has
been employed in India for many centuries by the natives to treat snakebites and mental illness.

10. Approaches needed for the develop-ment of
traditional medicine
 As herbal medicine is the first level of contact for rural people when they require
medical care, it is imperative for governments to take immediate steps to introduce
the use of traditional medicine to supplement PHC. The government should
provide environment to the people

11. Zoo-pharmacognosy approach
 Observation of the behavior of the animals with a view to identify the candidate plants for
new drug discovery is not a distant phenomenon. Observation of straight tails linked to
cattle grazing habits in certain regions of South America led to identification of a
plant Cestrum diurnum and three other plant members of family Solanaceae, which
probably are the only known plant sources of the derivatives of Vitamin D3. This approach,
however, needs close observation and monitoring of the behavior of animals.

12. Better Natural Known Drugs
Plant Product Uses
Opium Poppy Heroin , morphine.codeine Pain
Blue agave Tequila Pain
Coca leaves Cocaine Pain
Ephedra sinica Sudafed
Psilocybin mushroom Shroom
Willow Bark Aspirin Fever and Pain
Sassafras root Ecstasy
Pencillin mold Pencillin Antibiotics

13. Better Natural Known Drugs
Plant Product Uses
Cinchona Quinine Antimalarial
Tea Caffine Astringent. Pain killer
Mint Menthol Rubifaient
Papaya Peppin Highly Digestive
Bacterium Tetracycline Antibiotic
Belladona Attropine Pain Killer
Indian Snake Root Respirin Hypertension
Foxglove Digoxin Cardiac
Yew Taxol Ovarian Cancer
Artimisia Artimisin Antimalarial

14. 1. Opium poppy (heroin, morphine, codeine)
 Morphine is one of the many opiates
that come from the opium poppy. The
poppy is sliced while still in bud form,
and the milky fluid (latex) that bleeds
out is dried, becoming raw opium. Then
a long process of adding dangerous
chemicals, filtering, and cooking
increases the potency of the drug.
Heroin is a super-strong, quickly
absorbed form of morphine, and the
most intense use of opium. English
researcher C.R. Wright accidentally
created it for the first time in 1874
when he boiled morphine and acetic
anhydride together on his stove

15. 2. Blue agave (Tequila)
 Alcohol is unique in the world of drugs
because it's made through the process
of fermentation, not a particular basic
ingredient. Fermentation occurs when
yeast eats the sugars of whatever plant
you're using, the by-product being
ethanol (drinkable alcohol). In tequila,
named for the Mexican town where it
originated, the sugar comes from the
beautiful blue agave. The center of the
blue agave looks like pineapple. After
it's roasted and mashed, it provides the
sugar that, once properly rotted, leaves
behind alcohol

16. 3. Coca leaves (cocaine)
 Coca leaves, mostly grown in South America,
have to go through some pretty ugly steps
to become cocaine. Steps involving
powdered cement, gasoline soaks, and
battery acid baths are all needed to
condense the naturally occurring leaves into
an illegal narcotic. The leaves themselves
have been used by native populations for
centuries as a (much milder) stimulant and
medication. Spanish physician and botanist
Nicolás Monardes described the effect of the
leaves in 1569: "When they wished to make
themselves drunk and out of judgment they
chewed a mixture of tobacco and coca
leaves which make them go as they were out
of their wittes

17. 4. Ephedra sinica (Sudafed, meth)
 This scraggly little bush, also called ma
huang, has been used in Chinese medicine
for centuries. If it sounds familiar, that's
because decongestants like Sudafed once
synthesized their main ingredient from
ephedra (pseudoephedrine). Products
containing ephedrine or pseudoephedrine
are very hard to find now, as the U.S.
government considers it a controlled
substance. The alkaloids in the plant can be
abused, most commonly in the form of
weight-loss drugs and meth

18. 5. Psilocybin mushroom (shrooms)
 Psilocybin, the naturally occurring
compound that causes the euphoria
and psychedelic trips associated with
shrooms, can be found in over 200
species of mushrooms, most of which
grow wild in Mexico. Different
mushrooms have different
concentrations of psilocybin, even
varying in which part of the fungus you
eat. A word of advice to the adventure
seeker: Shrooms can be
indistinguishable from any number of
lethally poisonous mushrooms.
Consuming unknown mushrooms may
send you on a trip that takes you much
further than you intended

19. 6. Willow bark (aspirin)
 Salicylic acid, found in willow bark, has
cooled fevered brows across the world for
millennia. Even Hippocrates, the father of
medicine, used to recommend chewing the
bark to reduce fevers and inflammation in
his patients, around 300 B.C. The willow tree
has strains native to Europe, China, and
North America, all of which can be used in
medicine. It was from this bark that scientists
at the German company Bayer developed
aspirin in 1897. An interesting side note:
Bayer lost all its patents and trademarks in
World War I, when the U.S. government
seized the firm as spoils of war and
auctioned it off to an American patent
medicine company.

20. 7. Sassafras root (ecstasy)
 Root beer and sarsaparilla used to
have actual sassafras oil in them for
flavor. They don't anymore, since the
chemical in the oil, safrole, is now a
controlled substance. Distilled from
the roots and bark of the sassafras
tree, safrole is a key ingredient in the
manufacture of ecstasy. Not in its
original form, of course. It is the
treatments with formaldehyde, paint
thinner, and drain cleaner that make
sassafras oil such a delightful thing
to put inside your body.

21. 8. Penicillium mold (penicillin)
 Penicillin: The mighty, moldy world changer. It
was the first drug to effectively combat bacterial
infections, leading to cures of an untold number
of afflictions, from strep to syphilis. It was
discovered accidentally by Alexander Fleming in
1928. He forgot about a petri dish filled with
staph bacteria he'd left out, and he discovered
blue green penicillium mold growing all over it.
Penicillium mold is an incredibly common
species of mold, apt to grow on organic
material wherever conditions are dank enough.
Wherever the mold touched the staph, the
bacteria was gone. Fleming didn't think it would
work in people and never tried to make
medicine out of it. That was done years later by
Australian Nobel laureate Howard Walter Florey,
together with the German Nobel laureate Ernst
Chain and the English biochemist Norman
Heatley.