Operationalising Holistic Human Development: Food for Thought and Ideas for Action in the Rural Context

Medicinal plants are nature's hidden and to a large extent unexplored treasure. Although they have been used as a source of safe and effective medicine since time immemorial, this potential resource has hardly been commercially tapped. India is endowed with about 8000 species of medicinal plants. According to a recent estimate of the Planning Commission, Government of India, the potential for plant-based crude drugs is about Rs. 400 billion. Globally, the demand for medicinal plants and their derivatives is growing at a rate of 7-15%. Medicinal plants continue to be an important therapeutic aid for alleviating ailments of humankind. Search for eternal health and longevity and to seek remedy to relieve pain and discomfort prompted the early man to explore his immediate natural surrounding and tried many plants, animal products and minerals and developed a variety of therapeutic agents. Over millenia that followed the effective agents amongst them were selected by the process of trial, error, empirical reasoning and even by experimentation. These efforts have gone in history by the name discovery of `medicine'. In many eastern cultures such as those of India, China and the Arab/Persian world this experience was systematically recorded and incorporated into regular system of medicine that refined and developed and became a part of the Material Medical of these countries. The ancient civilization of India, China, Greece, Arab and other countries of the world developed their systems of medicine independent of each other but all of them were predominantly plant based. This book may be able to provide a lucid discourse on the subject to the person seeking a brief information on the topics.