MERITS OF USING HERBS IN WHOLE STATE (AYURVEDA’s CONCEPT) OVER ISOLATED FRACTIONS Madupu Paramkusha Rao*

Herbs are precursors of animals and human beings. The plants growing around his vicinity fulfill all the basic needs of human life like food, water and shelter. Similarly plants act like natural tools to treat the ailments. Ayurveda i.e. the total science of human living has identified this natural truth and perfected it. At the outset, two schools of thought prevail regarding the use of herbs as drugs. The ancient school advocated and practiced by Ayurveda prefers using the herbs in the whole state, without disturbing naturally designed integrity of them. The second school insists on isolation of pharmacologically active chemicals present in the herbs preparing synthetic equivalents if possible and using them for therapeutic applications. This paper discusses the logic, eco-friendly design and merits of whole drug application against the isolated fractions with apt examples.