Tropical Plants In Health Care Delivery In Nigeria

DescriptionThe retationship between plants and human beings is as old as man. Africans have tong recognized the efficacy of herbal remedies in the treatment of Common ailments, such as, malaria, headache, skin infections, theumatism, fever, even hypertension. White WNestern trained medical practitioners generally view alternative (herbal) medicines with a great deal of skepticism, there has been a renewed interest by pharmaceutical companies in natural remedies of recent, especially with the success of antimalariats from China and India. In Africa, the knowledge of the curative properties of local plants is guarded by the herbal practitioners and this has curtailed the systematic study of these medicines, The secretive manner in which natural healers operate also leaves the door wide open for charlatans. Tropical Plants in Health Care Delivery in Nigeria is a compendium of tropical plant species used by herbalists in Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa. The author provides a list of 155 ailments treated within traditional practice in Nigeria, including the plants prescribed, together with their families and the parts used. The author also acknowledges the earlier work of Michael Gelfand (et a) in Zimbabwe. Professor Okafor should be congratulated for organizing in one volume, this vast number of medicinal plants and their properties, as this will provide the modern scientist/chemist the information needed to test the efficacy of these plants in a systematic manner.