Medicinal plants used for preventive medicinal purposes: A survey in Muktipara village, Chuadanga district, Bangladesh

Biswas, K.R., Ishika, T., Rahman, M., Khan, T., Swarna, A., Monalisa, M.N., Sanam, S., Mlaek, I. and Rahmatullah, M. (2011) Medicinal plants used for preventive medicinal purposes: A survey in Muktipara village, Chuadanga district, Bangladesh. American-Eurasian Journal of Sustainable Agriculture, 5 (2). pp. 247-251.

Abstract

Bangladesh has over 5,000 floral species, approximately a fifth of which are considered as medicinal plants. Such plants form the major base of formulations prescribed by folk medicinal practitioners, otherwise known as Kavirajes, for treatment of diverse ailments. Kavirajes are present in almost every villages of the around 86,000 villages of the country and play a major role in providing primary health care to the rural residents. In our various ethnomedicinal surveys, we noticed that Kavirajes prescribe plants for not only curative but also for preventive purposes. Since such plants can play a major role in avoidance of diseases and so save health-care costs, the objective of the present survey was to document the various plants that were advised by the practicing Kaviraj of Muktipara village in Chuadanga district of Bangladesh. A total of 11 plants distributed into 11 families were found to be advised by the Kaviraj to village residents to be taken at different times of the year towards prevention of several common ailments. The various ailments against which the plants were prescribed included respiratory tract infections like coughs, colds and mucus, syndromes produced by excessive exposure to sun's heat, hemorrhoids, skin disorders, chicken pox, and flatulency or bloating, i.e. formation of excessive gas in the stomach. Interviews with the rural households of the village indicated that the plants do give positive effects for which the plants are advised to be taken, indicating that these plants can form as good sources of preventive medicine. Since prevention of disease is much more desirable than occurrence of a disease followed by its cure, the plants merit considerable potential for studies to establish them as functional foods.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publisher:	American-Eurasian Network for Scientific Information
URI:	http://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/38922

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