Medicinal Plants and Traditional Medicine Conference, Nairobi, Kenya ,16-19 May 2000

Medicinal Plants and Traditional Medicine Conference, Nairobi, Kenya ,16-19 May 2000

ABSTRACT 02/12.07
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Shashi Varma and Patricia Goldey

While the potential of indigenous knowledge for health care is fully recognised in the literature and by
many health professionals, the practices of so many indigenous peoples go unrecorded and untested.
Indigenous knowledge remains essentially untapped, an unwritten resource involving information, language
and skills in so many groups, languages, cultures and environments. An attempt is made in this paper to
identify selected indigenous health technologies in a tribal area of Bihar State, India; to describe the
treatments, their application and preparation; and to link the traditional practice with the relevant
scientific information to test or determine the validity of the practices.
The present study was undertaken through a sample of 100 tribal respondents practising indigenous
knowledge for health related problems who were interviewed in order to investigate the different
indigenous health technologies prevalent in the area. The scientific relevance of their indigenous
knowledge was authenticated or compared on the basis of reported therapeutic action and uses of plants
from the available literature with a view to highlight their medicinal potential.
These were found to be effective in the treatment of a variety of health problems, and most were also
scientifically confirmed. The paper argues however that other plant uses as practised by tribal people
still need to be explored: in order to popularise more widely the authenticated practices; to preserve
indigenous knowledge; to integrate or blend it with scientific knowledge so that health professionals
and health care users may benefit from a wider range of health care strategies which are environmentally
unthreatening.
The current fast deforestation in the country may endanger medicinal plant species which need to be
preserved for future use without disturbing the eco-system.

NAME OF THE AUTHORS : Shashi Varma and Patricia Goldey

TITLE: Using plants for health: indigenous knowledge in health
care in a tribal region of Bihar, India

EMAIL: s.k.varma@reading.ac.uk

ADDRESS: Dr Shashi Varma
Visiting Research Fellow
AERDD
The University of Reading
The Agriculture building
P O Box 237
Whiteknights Road
Reading RG6 6AR
UK
Tel: (0) 118 931 8157
Fax: (0) 118 926 1244