Development of monographs key for users of medicinal plants, says V-C

The Vice-Chancellor of University of Mysore N.K. Lokanath on Tuesday pushed for learning on preparing monographs of medicinal plants that will be of immense importance for future research. The development of monographs is crucial to meeting the needs of users of medicinal plants, he stressed.

The Vice-Chancellor of University of Mysore N.K. Lokanath on Tuesday pushed for learning on preparing monographs of medicinal plants that will be of immense importance for future research. The development of monographs is crucial to meeting the needs of users of medicinal plants, he stressed.

Speaking after inaugurating a workshop on Medicinal Plant Monograph Development, organised by the Department of Studies in Botany, University of Mysore and the Government Ayurveda Research Centre here, he said India is home to some of the most important medicinal and aromatic plants and has a treasure of medicinal plants in Eastern and Western Himalayas, the Eastern and the Western Ghats and the Andaman and Nicobar islands.

He said the Indian sub-continent is well known for its traditional knowledge where people practice traditional medicine. Considering the importance of the traditional knowledge, the government of India identified and recognised six systems of medicine – Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, Sowa-Rigpa and Homeopathy as alternative medicines to allopathy and established a Ministry of AYUSH.

However, the assurance of the safety, quality and efficacy of the medicinal plants and herbal products have now become a key issue in industrialised and developing countries. Both the general consumer and healthcare professionals need to validate authoritative information on the safety and efficacy of medicinal preparations, he opined.

In this line, both at the international and national level, government agencies have developed certain guidelines to assure the authenticity of the medicinal plants and medicines. At the international level, WHO took initiative during the fourth International Conference of Drug Regulatory Authorities (ICDRA) held in Tokyo in 1986 and requested a list of medicinal plants and establishment of international specifications for the most widely used medicinal plants and their simple preparations, the V-C explained.

Guidelines for the assessment of herbal medicine were subsequently prepared by the WHO and adopted by the sixth ICDRA in Ottawa, Canada, in 1991. As a result of ICDRA’s recommendations and in response to requests from WHO’s member states for assistance in providing safe and effective herbal medicines for use in national healthcare systems, WHO has now published four volumes of monographs on selected medicinal plants, according to Prof. Lokanath.

In India, four major collections of documents describing various kinds of knowledge and thoughts are found in Vedic era, which include the Rigveda, Samaveda, Yajurveda and Atharvaveda. Among these, the Atharvaveda already contains many medical contents, including information on human body, physiology and others which can be considered as ancient monographs related to medicinal plants, the V-C explained.