Abstract
An ethnomedicinal study was conducted to document the indigenous medicinal plant knowledge and use by traditional healers in southwestern Ethiopia from December 2005 to November 2006. Data were collected from 45 randomly selected traditional healers using semi-structured interviews and observations. Sixty-seven ethnomedicinal plant species used by traditional healers to manage 51 different human ailments were identified and documented. Healers' indigenous knowledge was positively correlated with their reported age but not with their educational level. High degree of consensus was observed among traditional healers in treating tumor (locally known as Tanacha), rabies (Dhukuba Seree) and insect bite (Hadhaa). The use of more than one species was significantly cited for remedy preparations. The reported abundance of the ethnomedicinal plant species varied significantly with respect to the presence of multiple uses of the reported species. Our results showed that ethnomedicinal plant species used by healers are under serious threat due to several factors, which indicates the need for urgent attention towards their conservation and sustainable utilization.
Highlights
Ethnomedicinal plants have been used since ancient time for human healthcare and still remain the most widely used medication system in developing and least developed nations like Ethiopia where over 80% of the population is dependent on traditional medicines [1]
A remarkable traditional medicinal plant knowledge and practice was documented from the study area
Older traditional healers had greater knowledge and use of ethnomedicinal plant species than younger traditional healers. This may indicate that the indigenous medicinal plant use knowledge was declining among the younger generation, which could be attributed to the low interest of the younger generation to inherit and use ethnomedicinal knowledge
Summary
Ethnomedicinal plants have been used since ancient time for human healthcare and still remain the most widely used medication system in developing and least developed nations like Ethiopia where over 80% of the population is dependent on traditional medicines [1]. There has been a continuous growth of demand for herbal medicines globally [2]. The demand has been increasing as a result of growth of human populations and the frequently inadequate provision of modern medicine [3]. The loss of medicinal plant species has been aggravated by the erosion of the age old accumulated indigenous knowledge on traditional use and management of these plants as its transfer system is widely known to be poor [1,5,6]
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