Ethnobotany: A Living Science for Alleviating Human Suffering

Since time immemorial, plants served as the first source of medicine to treat ailments. Man learnt about the therapeutic use of plants through trials and errors. This knowledge has been orally passed from generation to generation which led to the development of the traditional health care system, practiced in various countries of the world [1]. Ethnobotanical studies discover plant resources that can be used for targeting novel compounds leading to the development of new medicaments for treating especially complicated and minor diseases [2]. Today, ethnobotany and ethnopharmacognosy are being used for targeting new compound. Due to being rich in diversity, tropical regions may play key role in providing germplasm with new leads [1]. It is estimated that 80% of the world's population lives in developing countries and over 80% of the world's population rely on plant-derived medicines for their primary health care needs [3]. Based on the personal experience, people knew therapeutic potential of the medicinal plants without rationale of their efficacy. Because of advancement, we have a better understanding of the healing powers of plants due to presence of multifunctional chemical entities for treating complicated health conditions. The ethnobotany provided significant information that led to isolation of active compounds from the recent past like morphine from opium, cocaine, codeine, digitoxin, and quinine [4–6]. It is worthwhile to mention that a dozen of effective valuable drugs are discovered during the last 40 years from higher plants. The very common ones are diosgenin derived from Dioscorea deltoidea; reserpine from Rauwolfia serpentina; pilocarpine from Pilocarpus spp.; vincristine/ vinblastine from Catharanthus roseus; digoxin/digitoxin from Digitalis species [7]; arteether (trade name Artemotil), a recent antimalarial drug is obtained from artemisinin-a ses-quiterpene lactone isolated from Artemisia annua [8]; galan-tamine (also known as galanthamine, trade name Reminyl) isolated from Galanthus woronowii [9, 10]. Drug discovery from plant lore and traditional medicines are reemerging. Ethnobotanical studies exposed various medicinal plants for discovering miraculous drugs which are still available in the market. Even today, various areas of the world have a unique tradition of plant lore for alleviating human suffering as well as their domesticated animals. There is a need to document such valuable information before it is permanently lost. Based on such data, new medicaments can be predicted through undergoing experimentation which may be of potential use to treat various complicated human diseases. The plant kingdom is an implicit gold mine of new chemical compounds which are …