African Indigenous Medical Knowledge and Human Health by Charles Wambebe

Author:Charles Wambebe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CRC Press
Published: 2018-01-16T00:00:00+00:00

4.12 Integrated Approach for Evaluating Herbal Remedies

Based on outcomes described in this chapter, two fundamental questions must be taken into account before initiating research on plants used in traditional medicine. Is it desirable to invest substantial effort to discover pure compounds in the hope of using them as drugs per se, or is it preferable to use traditional preparations for therapeutic applications? African countries have an enormous wealth of information on medicinal plants, which are not only cheap and abundant but also culturally acceptable. However, most of them have neither a well-organized pharmaceutical industry nor the manufacturing capacity to isolate large quantities of active principles from plants. Thus, programs for drug discovery and development in these countries should not follow the Western approach. A flowchart for the investigation of medicinal plants is given in Figure 4.9. This flowchart focuses on the initial need to produce safe and effective phytomedicine but includes the long-term objective of discovering the active principles, preferably in collaboration with a pharmaceutical industry.

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