Village Pharmacopeia: Traditional Medicinal Plant use among Rural Communities in Raigarh District, Chhattisgarh
Dr. Rajesh Kumar Patel
ABSTRACT
The rural and tribal people in India rely on traditional medicine as the foundation of primary healthcare, especially in areas having biodiversity and having low access to modern medicine. In this research, the topic examined is the village pharmacopeia or the aggregate knowledge and practice of using medicinal plants in rural communities in one specific district in Chhattisgarh (Raigarh District). The study employed the ethnobotanical survey method and the direct field interviewing of the traditional healers and the villagers and recorded more than 30 medicinal plant species that were used to treat common diseases like fever, stomach diseases, skin diseases and respiratory illnesses. The data were compared with the past ethnomedicinal literature and specifically Jain and Singh (2010) to find continuity, novelty and erosion of traditional knowledge. The findings show that local therapies are mainly dominated by leaf and bark preparations, the most common families represented include Verbenaceae and Solanaceae. Nevertheless, there is a loss of the transmission of traditional knowledge in the younger generations. The paper highlights the significance of documentation, bioprospecting and community based-conservation as a means of conservation of indigenous health heritage in Raigarh.
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