Plants in Herbal Medicine; Their Traditional Uses, Chemistry and Biology

Abstract

This important textbook is the first to review the fascinating interdisciplinary areas of herbal medicine. The book highlights the traditional uses of over four hundred medicinal plants growing locally in the West African sub-region and elsewhere with the same climatic environment. It also deals with the products of secondary metabolism, highlighting the presence of such compounds as alkaloids, flavonoids, vitamins, terpenes and terpenoids, quinones, lignans and their derivatives, proteins, carbohydrate substances etc. The book goes ahead to highlight the incidental effects of plant extracts or isolated chemical substances acting on laboratory animals or, in some cases, on the human body and animals. Some of the results of research already carried out have been highlighted; those affecting the cardiovascular system, the respiratory system, the nervous system and those that show anticancer, antimicrobial, anti-allergenic, antioxidant, parasiticidal, immuno-stimulatory, anti-inflammatory activities, those used for family planning, prostate and urinary problems in man and animals and many more.