Traditional Use Of Medicine: Traditional Medicine And Herbal Medicine

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1.1 Herbalism Herbalism is one of the traditional or folk medicine practice which is also known as medical herbalism, botanical medicine, herbology, herbal medicine, and phytotherapy. The scope of herbal medicine is extends from plants to fungal and bee products, as well as animal parts (Acharya and Shrivastava, 2008). Study about traditional use of medicines is recognized as a better way to learn about the potential future medicines. Around 80 of the modern medicines used were derived from "ethnomedical" plant sources (Fabricant and Farnsworth, 2001). 1.2 Plant Metabolites Plants are possessing the ability to synthesize various phytochemicals to defend them from the attack of various predators like insects, fungi and herbivorous mammals. Even though few of these compounds are being toxic to plant predators, they also inherits beneficial effects which can be used to treat various human diseases. The plant secondary metabolites are structurally diverse, many are aromatic substances. So far, around 12,000 of chemical compounds were isolated from plant sources; a number estimated to be less than 10% of the total phytocompounds. Plant phytochemicals functions inside human body by binding to specific receptor molecules which was identical to the conventional drugs. The herbal medicines are found to be effective than the conventional medicines which may cause harmful side effects. Many of the herbs and spices used by humans to season food yield useful medicinal compounds (Lai

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