Ethnobotanics used as an external application to manage wounds in Sri Lankan traditional medicine; A scientific validation of Ola leaf manuscript evidences

Abstract

Indigenous medicine is a unique entity of a medical system which has been proven as an effective and is in practice from ancient times in Sri Lanka. In this system, use of medicinal plants in different ailments are driven by popular knowledge through traditional healers. However, these claimed activities are neither scientifically proven nor refuted. This evidence-based study is focused on the scientific validation of commonly used herbs included in external applications to treat wounds in indigenous medicine. The data were gathered referring ancient Ola leaf manuscripts based on different herbal applications used for the treatment of wounds and analysed to reveal the plants which were mostly used in those different applications. The selected plant species were evaluated in terms of the current state -of-the-art for their pharmacology and effectiveness in wound healing. Many external applications are used in treating wounds in different dosage forms such as oils, fresh juices, mellum, bolus fermentation, powders and fumigation. Pongamia pinnata and Vernonia zeylanica were found in highest number of remedies followed by Curcuma longa, Jasminum sambac, Azadirachta indica, Glycyrrhiza glabra and Desmodium triflorum. Current evidences suggest that the majority of the plants used were studied for their wound healing potential by in vivo studies as the current maximum level of scientific evidences available. Vernonia zeylanica is the least studied plant in the literature. Perhaps the endemicity of this plant to Sri Lanka could be the major reason for the scarcity of literature. This is the first study systemically assessing of evidences from modern literature to support Ola leaf evidences on wound healing activity mentioned in traditional indigenous medical system of Sri Lanka.