The paper deals with the use of various medicinal plants during the Ayurvedic process of Panchakarma, a cleansing process that eliminates toxins from the body thereby curing diseases and revitalizing the human body. The five stages (Karmas) of Panchakarma along with the pre-treatment and post-treatment processes have been systematically designed to achieve this purpose. Several medicinal plants...

Nelumbo nucifera is grown in many parts of the globe including India for its medicinal and nutritional value. In Kashmir, the plant grows naturally in the lakes and its stem is being extensively used in many famous Kashmiri cuisines. In addition, its fruits and seeds are also consumed, but to a lesser extent. Many studies have established a wide range of the pharmacological activities of this p...

Plants have been used as a source of medicine since ancient times. These medicines are cheaper and safe. According to WHO about 80% of the world’s population depends on traditional medicine for their primary health care. These traditional knowledge systems have started to disappear with the passage of time due to scarcity of written documents and relatively low income in these traditions. The p...

BACKGROUND Traditional communities have been utilizing animal products for numerous purposes and have for a long time contributed to the accumulation of world knowledge. Local people in Tanzania and elsewhere in Africa, have been using birds including ostriches as pets or their products such as meat, eggs as food; their body parts such as feathers, bones and hide for ornaments but more importan...

Vitex negundo Linn. is credited with innumerable medicinal activities like analgesic, anti-inflammatory, anticonvulsant, antioxidant, bronchial relaxant, hepatoprotective, etc. The ethanolic extract of leaves has been found safe as LD 50 dose (by oral route) of it was recorded in non-toxic dose range. Larger trials are required to prove its all activities before it is recommended in future for ...

The unreported medicinal uses of these plants from kolli hills, Salem District of Tamil Nadu are presented in this paper.

In this paper the author presents medicinal or otherwise useful weed species with details of family, vernacular name and its medicinal utility. Information on other general economic importance of medicinal weeds is also described here.

Descurainia sophia (L.) is a dicot annual weed, distributed in many countries of Asia, Europe, Africa and America. In China it is distributed throughout most of the wheat producing regions and has long been used in traditional Chinese medicines to cure different ailments. It has an impressive range of medicinal uses and is a good source of proteins, amino acids, fatty acids, cholesterol, lacton...

Camptotheca trees had been used as fuelwood and an ornamental species in its native China. There were no reports on medicinal uses of Camptotheca in China and thus it was believed the trees had no medicinal before its antitumor activity discovered in 1957. We conducted national surveys of Camptotheca in China from 1994 to 1999. We found that Camptotheca acuminate is commonly known as happytree ...

Cordyceps sinensis has been described as a medicine in old Chinese medical books and Tibetan medicine. It is a rare combination of a caterpillar and a fungus and found at altitudes above 4500m in Sikkim. Traditional healers and local people of North Sikkim recommend the mushroom, i.e., Yarsa gumba, Keera jhar (C. sinensis) for all diseases either as a single drug or combined with other herbs. T...