Though science has been a fantastic tool for developing conveniences in our life it is threatening the very existence of this planet. On retrospection it becomes sufficiently clear that scientific progress-enabled modern medical achievements are largely the result of a ‘one-sided’ approach to nature and its ways. When we look at the epistemological basis of traditional systems world over it is clear that their knowledge systems had a different understanding of nature and its workings. Western scientific paradigms were seen as superior to indigenous paradigms, and what the world faces today is the result of this partisan way of looking at what accounts for ‘knowledge’.

Despite the demonstrable historical success in using indigenous knowledge systems to guide drug discovery, there has been considerable resistance to incorporation of information from such knowledge systems into modern programmes of drug discovery. Supremacy of western culture over all other cultures is a deep theme in most of the western world. Since western medicine was regarded as prima facie evidence of the intellectual and cultural superiority of western culture, indigenous medicine was consciously denigrated by western academics particularly during the period of colonial expansion. This led to the caricature of indigenous healing practices as superstition. Such denigration by the colonial powers and their academic institutions was incredibly destructive of traditional medical knowledge. In most developing countries the medical infrastructure has been patterned almost entirely after western models. In many countries it even became illegal to practice traditional medicine. Only in the last decade have several nations, including China, Nigeria, Mexico and Thailand, attempted to incorporate traditional medicine into their primary health care systems.

Western science examines studies, interprets, writes about indigenous cultures but never grants them a fundamental role in education and it would never permit them to displace science from the central role it now assumes. Though traditional drugs and guidance of traditional healers was sought in identifying new drugs, no credit is bestowed upon them. They are merely referred to as ‘anonymous’ informants. Nobody knows the name of the old traditional healer from Shropshire who led William Withering to his discovery of the use of Digitalis. Also there is greater resistance in crediting any scientific discovery if it is not from the west. Though variolation (inoculation of small pox obtained from diseased pustules from patients recovering from the disease) was practised extensively in India and China since ancient times, Edward Jenner, an English country doctor who made similar observations as late as 1750 is referred to as the ‘Father of Immunology’. Similarly, fumigating the place of surgery with neem and bdellium leaves prior to surgery was an age old practice predating 1,000 BC in India—which has a strong and enviable medical tradition of surgical practices—Joseph Lister is credited with the discovery of the theory of antisepsis.

As a result of this strong cultural superiority of the west and its nascent antipathy to traditional medical practices, western science remains largely ignorant of indigenous science.

Today for whatever reasons it is no longer possible to impose any medical system on the populace. What works and what is needed becomes the obvious choice. The increasing public demand for traditional medicine has led to considerable interest among policy makers, health administrators and medical doctors in the possibilities of bringing together traditional and modern medicine.

This global resurgence of interest in traditional medicine has been formally acknowledged by the World Health Organization (WHO), which in its traditional medicine strategy 2002–2005 has framed policies to integrate TM/CM with national health care systems. As a part of the strategy to reduce financial burden on developing countries which spend 40–50% of their total health budget on drugs, WHO currently encourages, recommends and promotes the inclusion of herbal drugs in national health care programmes because such drugs are easily available at a price within the reach of common man and as such are time tested, and thus considered to be much safer than modern synthetic drugs. Today the global market for herbal products is estimated to be around US$ 62 billion and growing at the rate of 15–20% annually.