Unani Medicinal Plants of Dindigul District Tamil Nadu

India is blessed with a huge treasure of medicinal plants. The supply base of 90% herbal raw drugs used in the manufacture of Unani Medicine, Ayurveda and Homoeopathy medicine is largely from the forests. Besides, the plants are also used in various industries producing herbal items other than medicines. Apart from requirement of medicinal plants for internal consumption, India is one of the major exporters of crude drugs after China, to the six developed countries viz. USA, Germany, France, Switzerland, U.K. and Japan who share between them 75-80% of the total export of crude drugs from India.

Large-scale use of medicinal plants and herbs in the preparation of drugs is increasing both in developed and developing countries due to the growing concern about the side effects of chemicals and synthetic substances. Plant-based drugs have the advantage of being simple and effective, besides offering a broad spectrum of activity with an emphasis on the preventive action of drugs. Plants are also found to contain disease-specific curative properties and extracts of such plants are being used increasingly to manufacture effective drugs. This has created an enormous need for information about properties and uses of these plants. It is also necessary to collect scientific information on distribution of medicinal plants, their relative abundance, flowering and fruiting time, ethno-pharmacological uses, etc.

The present title Unani Medicinal Plants of Dindigul District, Tamil Nadu provides first hand field data and literature review on 106 Unani medicinal plants collected and identified from the forest areas of Dindigul District of Tamil Nadu. The Survey of Medicinal Plants Unit of Regional Research Institute of Unani Medicine, Chennai, undertook the present work during 1999 and 2001. All the species in this compilation are arranged in alphabetical order, providing information on their botanical name, family, Unani, English and local name(s), locality, voucher specimen number, brief description of plant including occurrence, habit and habitat and important therapeutic actions and uses as described in scientific literature and available texts of Unani Medicine. Besides photographs of the plants covered in this volume, separate indices for English, Unani and local names of the plants have been appended along with glossary of Unani terms used in the texts with their modern equivalents/explanatory notes. The present compilation on Unani medicinal plants is the first of the series for the State of Tamil Nadu. It is hoped that this work will be useful for researchers, academicians, practitioners and others concerned with medicinal plants in general and Unani system of medicine in particular.

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