Abstract: The traditional uses of medicinal plants in healthcare practices are providing clues to new areas of research; hence its importance is now well recognized. However, information on the uses of indigenous plants for medicine is not well documented from many rural areas of Rajasthan. Questionnaire surveys, participatory observations and field visits were planned to elicit information on the medicinal plants used by local community of Jodhpur district of Thar desert. The use of 21 plants distributed into 17 families is described. The medicinal plant preparations were applied through different routes of administration like oral, topical or dermal and nasal routes. However, oral application was the highest and most commonly used route of application followed by topical or dermal. Major findings were use of Abrus precatorius for urinary disorders, abortion and contraception; Achyranthes aspera for asthma, cough and gynecological purpose; Acacia catechu as astringent, antidiarrheal, haemostatic and for treatment of skin diseases; Capparis decidua antidiabetic, hypolipidemic, analgesic and anti-inflammatory; Euphorbia caducifolia cutaneous eruption, leucoderma, earache and Ziziphus nummularia as antidiarrheal and anti-infective for skin.
INTRODUCTION
Out of the total 4,20,000 flowering plants reported from the world (Govaerts, 2001) more than 50,000 are used for medicinal purposes (Schippmann et al., 2002). In India, more than 43% of the total flowering plants are reported to be of medicinal importance (Pushpangdan, 1995). Documentation of traditional knowledge especially on the medicinal uses of plants has provided many important drugs of the modern day (Cox and Balick, 1994; Fabricant and Farnsworth, 2001). Even today this area holds much more hidden treasure, as almost 80% of the human population in developing countries is dependent on plant resources for healthcare (Farnsworth et al., 1985). In country like India, according to reasonable estimates, 70% inhabitants still rely on herbs (Singh and Gautam, 1997). Nation witnesses 2500 species of plants from about 1000 genera which are used by traditional healers (Chandel et al., 1996).
Enormous knowledge on medicinal plants exists as oral among the primitive societies and rural population scattered throughout the India where, a large number of potent medicinal herbs are found growing wild. Although, a great amount of ethnobotanical research work has been undertaken in various pockets of tribal country of Rajasthan state by many workers of this field (Singh and Pandey, 1980, 1983, 1996, 1998; Joshi, 1989, 1991, 1993, 1995; Mishra and Kumar, 2000; Trivedi and Nargas, 2000; Sharma, 2002b; Trivedi, 2002). However, information on the uses of plants as traditional medicines has not been documented from different sectors of the district. Keeping this in view, the present study was initiated, with an aim to document the knowledge of rural people and folklore on the utilization of medicinal plants in remote areas of Jodhpur district and selection few medicinal plant for photochemical and pharmacological study.
STUDY AREA
Jodhpur is situated at the height between 250-300 meters above sea level and stretches between 26° 18' to 27° 37' at North Latitude and between 72° 55' to 73° 52' at East Longitude, having geographical area of 22850 sq. kms (Fig. 1). Jodhpur comes under arid zone of western region of Rajasthan, it covers 11.60% of total area of arid zone of the state, extreme of heat in summer and cold in winter is the characteristic of the desert. Jodhpur is no exception. The temperature varies from 49 degree in summer to 1 degree in winter. The rainy days are limited to maximum 15 in a year, average rainfall is 302 mm.
| Fig. 1: | Map of area of study |
Despite low and extremely uncertain rainfall, considerable diurnal and seasonal temperature variation, soil deficient in organic matter and nutrients (NPK ratio) soil prone to salinization, shifting sand dunes, it is not devoid of bountiful life supporting systems with abundance of animal and plant species making it a unique biodiversity region in the world.
SURVEY METHOD
In order to document the utilization of indigenous medicinal plants, survey was carried out during the year, 2007-08 in the remote areas of Jodhpur district of the Thar desert. The survey was spread across the seasons so as to get maximum information. The information on medicinal uses of the indigenous plants have been described after gathering informations from general local people, experienced aged rural folk, traditional herbal medicine practitioners and local herbal drug sellers and concluded them by consulting literature. A total of 200 inhabitants were interviewed, randomly selected 132 men and 68 women of different ages from about 35 years and above were interviewed in local language, i.e., Marwari. In addition direct plant observation and identification was done with the help of local healers known as Vaid. A structured questionnaire was used to elicit information from the resource persons using standard methods (Martin, 1995). Information on local name of the plant, plant parts used, preparation method, route of administration, approximate dosage, onset and duration action and possible complication were recorded. Plants collected during the surveys were identified with the help of published regional flora (Bhandari, 1990; Shetty and Singh, 1993; Sharma, 2002a,b) and by comparing voucher specimens with identified herbarium collections in the herbarium. From the collected data a list of plants of different families with their traditional uses, plant part used, their recipes and mode of administration is prepared in alphabetical order of families and name of the plants in a family (Table 1).
USE INDEX
Uses index per species was estimated by calculating the proportion of plants cited and utilized in relation to the total number of interviewees.
| Table 1: | Medicinal plants used by local community of Jodhpur district of Thar desert |
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Phytotherapy is an art practiced by few elderly people, who are familiar with the sign and symptoms of various common diseases and ill conditions and cure or allay symptomatically these illnesses with the locally available plant drugs. It was observed during the survey of Jodhpur district that these healers now represent a disappearing oral tradition which is not passed on to the next generation, obviously because the younger generation usually consider the belief in plant remedies a sort of superstition and less effective compared to modern medicine. It essential that this valuable knowledge regarding folk medicinal uses of plants be recorded before these time tested uses of herbal drugs are lost forever.
From the collected data a list of 21 plants (Fig. 2) distributed into 17 families with their traditional uses, part used, their recipes and mode of administration is prepared in alphabetical order. Among the major findings use of Abrus precatorius for urinary disorders, abortion and contraception; Achyranthes aspera for asthma, cough and gynecological purpose; Acacia catechu as astringent, antidiarrheal, haemostatic and for trement of skin diseases; Capparis decidua antidiabetic, hypolipidemic, analgesic and anti-inflammatory; Euphorbia caducifolia cutaneous eruption, Leucoderma Earache and Ziziphus nummularia as antidiarrheal and anti-infective for skin.
| Fig. 2: | Medicinal chart as per category; herbs, undershrub, shrubs and tree |
The medicinal plant preparations were applied through different routes of administration like oral, topical or dermal and nasal routes. However oral application was the highest and most commonly used route of administer followed by topical or dermal application. The formulation like paste is most frequently used followed by powder and decoction (Fig. 3).
Many of the plants that are used by the local people are also used in different medicinal systems such as, the Ayurveda and Unani. For example Asparagus racemosus is used by the local people for galactagogue and uterine tonic, Ayurvedic formulations ‘Shatavari Churna’ and ‘Trayodashanga guggulu’ are used for same purpose. Similarly Aegle marmelos which the local people use for diarrhea and enteric infections, is also used for diarrhea and dysentery in Ayurveda. Aegle marmelos is one of key ingredient of ‘Gangadar churna’ and ‘Pushyanuga churna’ used for the treatment of diarrhea and dysentery.
Plumbago zeylanica (Chitraka) is used for gastrointestinal disturbance and wounds healing by tribal people, in Ayurveda formulation like ‘Chitrakadi churna’ and ‘Mahasudarshan churana’ contain Plumbago zeylanica as a key ingredients used for same purpose. Phytochemical and pharmacological study has been carried out on plants like Capparis decidua (Goyal et al., 2009; Ali et al., 2009), Plumbago zeylanica (Sharma et al., 1991), Calotropis procera (Hassan et al., 2006; Chavda et al., 2010), Allium sativum (Adeniyi et al., 2006) Gymenma sylvestre (Rachh et al., 2010) and Aegle marmelos (Maity et al., 2009).
These medicinal plants are often used for disorders of digestive system followed by skin, respiratory, urinary and gynecological ailments (Fig. 4).
| Fig. 3: | Formulation of medicine plants used |
| Fig. 4: | Number of medicinal plants used for various disease |
The data recorded during this study were compared with the related study of Kirtikar and Basu (1991), Nadakarni (1954), Chopra et al. (1956, 1969), Satyavati et al. (1976), Agarwal (1986), Jain (1991), Asolkar et al. (1992) and also recently published reports on the traditional medicinal uses of the plants (Sebastian and Bhandari, 1984; Shekhawat and Anand, 1984; Katewa et al., 2001, 2004; Jain et al., 2005; Muthu et al., 2006). It was found that most of these plants are already known for similar uses. However, their recipes and the method of use in the majority of cases are different also the ingredients added and method of preparation are concerned. Some additional indigenous uses for some of these species have been recorded and given in the Table 1. Further, three unexplored plant are selected namely Ziziphus nummularia, Euphorbia caducifolia and Capparis decidua for the pharmacological studies.