Anticancer Herbal Drugs of India (With Special Reference to Ayurveda)

Preamble

Series of investigations have been conducted on cancer by carrying out multi-angled studies with inter-disciplinary approaches in order to find out perfect remedy for this most dreadful disease. Scientific researches in medical sciences are devoting their attention towards various aspects and many kinds of cancer.

The growing popularity of Ayurveda in world traditional systems of medicine is supposed to make delivery in preservance or preventive and remedial or curative aspects of cancer having resemblace with clinical entity of Arbuda in Susruta Samhita and other compendia followed by various works devoted to indigenous medicine.

Large number of drugs from botanical, mineral and animal sources is employed in treatment of this disease and allied ailing conditions. Survey has been made of such drugs which are mostly from plant origin as herbal therapy is gaining significance in management of cancer.

Review of anti-cancer drugs from sources of indigenous system has been carried out. Observations have been drawn on drug potentials and their inputs towards remedical measures against cancerous conditions. There are majority of three types of drugs: firstly, the drugs recorded and prescribed in classical texts; secondly, the drugs investigated through experiments and studies; and thirdly, the drugs belonging to ethnobotanicals as reported from field survey and tribal medicine. These indigenous drugs open vast avenue of multidisciplinary work.

ROLE OF INDIGENOUS DRUGS AGAINST CANCER (Pandey, G Abstract of papers, p.29):

First National conference on Use of Indigenous Drugs in the Management of Cancer (3rd-6th. February, 1988), Faculty of Ayurveda, Institute of Medical Science, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, U.P. India.

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