Medicinal plants are essentially consumed either as traditional medicines administered by traditional practitioners to the local population or as plant-derived commercial medicines dispensed as patented/licensed products on prescription or as over-the-counter (OTC) drugs. The latter mostly are products of allopathy with even products of traditional systems of medicine such as herbal nutritional supplements, cosmetics and…

Global resurgence of interest in medicinal plants has resulted in explosive growth of the herbal drug industry. Today modern medicine uses 7,000 compounds that may be sourced to plants. Natural products have until recently been the primary source of commercial medicines and drug leads. A recent survey revealed that 61% of the 877 drugs introduced…