MEDDB: a medicinal plant database developed with the information gathered from tribal people in and around Madurai, Tamil Nadu.

John Asnet Mary,Gurusamy Prabakaran Rubia Amal,Gunasekaran Ramya,Radhakrishnan Nithya,Karuppiah Chandran Priyadharshini,Morkondam Balasubramanian Ambika,Rajaiah Shenbagarathai

doi:10.6026/97320630008391

Abstract

Tribal peoples are endowed with enriched traditional wisdom to use available nature resources around them. They are well versed in the usage of plant for treating various diseases. They have used powder or extract or paste form of the plant parts such as root, shoot, whole plant, fruits and leaves etc. The recipe known by the tribal people was passed on only to their family members and community through mouth to mouth practice. Hence, the knowledge is confined to particular people alone. It is always expedient to store information in the database, so that it will be accessible by everyone from everywhere. To achieve this, MEDDB has been developed, which stores the details of 110 plant species that are commonly used by tribes for fever, asthma, cold, cough, diabetes, diarrhea, dysentery, eye infections, stomach ache, wounds and snake bite. The details of each plant were collected from the literature and through web search to give comprehensive and exhaustive information. Each plant entry is compiled under the subheadings viz., common name, classification, physical characteristics, medicinal uses, active constituents, and references.

Highlights

Traditional medicines are an invaluable resource for mankind
It is reported that over 6000 plants in India are in use of traditional medicine systems such as Ayurveda, Unanai, and Siddha [2]
It has been reported that 20,000 plants in India are rich in medicinal value from which 800 plant species are explored by 500 tribal communities for curing different diseases [3, 4]

Summary

Introduction

Traditional medicines are an invaluable resource for mankind. It is used to refer both traditional medicine system and various forms of indigenous medicine [1]. It has been reported that 20,000 plants in India are rich in medicinal value from which 800 plant species are explored by 500 tribal communities for curing different diseases [3, 4]. A survey conducted in remote villages of Madurai, Theni and Dindigul districts of Tamil Nadu identified 62 species of medicinally important plants belonging to 55 genera from 30 families with their uses [10].

Results

Conclusion