Abstract
In South Africa, traditional medicine remains the first point of call for a significant proportion of the population seeking primary healthcare needs. This is particularly important for treating common conditions including pain and inflammation which are often associated with many disease conditions. This review focuses on the analysis of the trend and pattern of plants used for mitigating pain and inflammatory-related conditions in South African folk medicine. An extensive search was conducted using various scientific databases and popular ethnobotanical literature focusing on South African ethnobotany. Based on the systematic analysis, 38 sources were selected to generate the inventory of 495 plants from 99 families that are considered as remedies for pain and inflammatory-related conditions (e.g., headache, toothache, backache, menstrual pain, and rheumatism) among different ethnic groups in South Africa. The majority (55%) of the 38 studies were recorded in three provinces, namely, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, and Western Cape. In terms of the number of mentions, the most popular plants used for pain and inflammatory-related conditions in South Africa were Ricinus communis L. (10), Aloe ferox Mill. (8), Pentanisia prunelloides subsp. latifolia (Hochst.) Verdc. (8), Dodonaea viscosa Jacq var. angustifolia (L.f) Benth. (8), (L.) W.T.Aiton. (7) Ruta graveolens L. (7), and Solanum aculeastrum Dunal. (7). The top five plant families represented were Asteraceae (13%), Fabaceae (8%), Apocynaceae (4.3%), Asparagaceae (4%), and Lamiaceae (4%). An estimated 54% of the recorded plants were woody (trees and shrubs) in nature, while the leaves (27%) and roots (25%) were the most dominant plant parts. The use of plants for alleviating pain and inflammatory-related conditions remains popular in South African folk medicine. The lagging ethnobotanical information from provinces such as North West, Gauteng, and Free State remains a gap that needs to be pursued meticulously in order to have a complete country-wide database.
Highlights
Inflammation is one of the most fundamental and pronounced protective reactions of an organism (Iwalewa et al, 2007; Medzhitov 2008; Kuprash and Nedospasov 2016; Kishore et al, 2019)
In order to expand the generated data, we explored and included benchmark ethnobotanical books relevant to the South African context and which are currently available in the library of the North-West University, South Africa
Based on the large number (495) of plants recorded, it is evident that their utilization for managing pain and inflammatory-related conditions remains a common practice in South African folk medicine
Summary
Inflammation is one of the most fundamental and pronounced protective reactions of an organism (Iwalewa et al, 2007; Medzhitov 2008; Kuprash and Nedospasov 2016; Kishore et al, 2019). It is regarded as a biological function which is triggered after the mechanical tissue disruption or from the responses by the presence of a physical, chemical, or biological agent in the body The importance of pain and related conditions cannot be overemphasized as it is known as a common, complex, and distressing problem that has a profound impact on individuals and society at large (Goldberg and McGee 2011; Mills et al, 2019)
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