Ethnomedicine is an area of research that deals with
medicines derived from plants, animals and minerals etc. and
used in the treatment of different human and veterinary ailments.
Ethnomedicines includes indigenous beliefs, concepts, knowledge
and practices among the ethnic groups, folk people and rural people
for preventing, minimizing or curing various diseases. For this
purpose, human groups around the world utilized the biological
and cultural resources in their own way to develop resistance to
combat different diseases, illness and health hazards arising from
different pathogens and agents. The ethnic people and tribal races
throughout the world have developed their own cultures, customs,
cults, rituals, taboos, totems, myths, song, edible and medicinal
practices. Wild and cultivated plants play a very crucial and vital
role in their cultures through generations long experiences and
experiments. The accomplishment and achievements of forest
dwelling ethnic groups in understanding plants and properties of
their roots, stems, leaves, flowers, fruits, seeds and underground
parts is chiefly due to long and unconditional relationship
with the vegetation and their survival on them. Although, their
traditional knowledge is based on repeated experimentation
through trial and error methods but still needed careful
considerations. It provides an opportunity to modern civilization
to take an advantage of their vast knowledge of natural resources
for scientific reviews and acceptance. In many ethnic communities,
health status, disease causes, and treatment practices are chiefly
based upon herbal resources. These unwritten medical practices
collectively constitute ‘Ethnomedicine’. This unwritten indigenous
knowledge of ethnic people has been passed by the words of mouth
from generation to generation. In most of ethnic communities
there are specialist medicine men or sometimes women. To know more click on below link.
