Study on the Medicinal Plants Used By Herbal Healers of Argha VDC of Arghakhanchi District Nepal

Abstract

The research work entitled “Study on the Medicinal Plants Used by Herbal Healers of Argha VDC of Arghakhanchi District Nepal” was conducted at Argha VDC, Arghakhanchi district. The study area is rich of biodiversity and medicinal plants. Local people and herbal healers used the medicinal plants to cure the various human diseases and ailments by using traditional knowledge.

The use of medicinal plants and their products to cure the disease is limited within the family members and relatives of herbal healers/practioners. Most of the herbal healers are only literate, poor and marginal family. They have not any official jobs. Traditional medicinal practice mainly found in poor and marginal family who is unable to pay high amount to the allopathic drugs and doctors. There are pressure of allopathic drugs, most of the people prier to the allopathic drugs, when they failed to cure from allopathic doctors and medicine, they turns towards locally found medicinal plant’s product and local herbal healers. Sick people paid their wages to the allopathic doctors but ayurvadic doctors and herbal healers treated free of cost, so their profession and practices at risk.

Those plants are used to cure the diseases, mostly they are wild, and most of them are used in diarrhoea, dysentery, cuts and wounds on their traditional ways. Local herbal healers harvested plants sps mostly from their community forest randomly; rarely they were cultivated these plants in their lands and boundaries, no one were practiced of medicinal plants except healers. Altogether 159 sps belonging to 134 genera and 71 families were found. Among them 151 sps are angiosperms, 4 sps are pteridophytes, 2 sps are lichens, 1 sp is fungi and 1 sp is gymnosperms. Among them 78 sp are herbs, 44 sp are trees and 37 sps are shrubs. Among 151 angiosperms mostly they are dicot and few are monocot.

All plants have curative properties against different diseases. 31 types of human diseases cured/ practiced by locally found medicinal plants parts. Herbal healers and local people used local plants in combined state i.e. more than one plants used to cure single disease. One plant has curative properties against different types of diseases and even the single disease can be cured by different plant species. They recommend medicinal plant parts in the powder and liquid form; sometimes they also mix animal parts and food grains with the plants parts to cure diseases. According to some healers, they are more effective when they are mixed with animal parts, oil, food grains and soils also. Their mixture depends on herbal healer, disease types, duration of infection period and treatment method.

Those sick people suffered from food and their feeding habit, so to cure the diseases food grains also used. Current pine tips and fresh cow dung is used to cure the fractured bones because they have sticky and hard properties when pasted on fractured places as like as plasters.