Traditional Medicinal Practices and Consensus of Inhabitants for Health Care Systems in Himalayas

The present study was carried out in the Dhasoli block of district Chamoli, in Garhwal Himalaya of Uttarakhand. The aim of the study was to document the cultural and indigenous knowledge of plant resources for health care management practices among the inhabitants of remote areas of Himalaya. Questionnaire and field visits were used for data collection on different plant species with ethnomedicinal importance. The informants’ consensus factor value ranged from 0.36 to 0.67 with the highest value of 0.67 for a liver disorder. Most dominant plant parts used were roots. Gastrointestinal disorder was treated by the highest number of species (21) followed by (17) species for dermatological disorders and respiratory disorders (17). There is a need for future research for different parts of plants for precise information about the curable ailments of a particular part of the plant which will open further path for pharmacological evaluation of traditional herbal medicine. *Address for correspondence: Jahangeer A. Bhat INTRODUCTION The exploration and utilization of ethnobotanical resources and their conservation is essential for rebuilding the traditional knowledge (Reddy 2012; Payyappallimana and Fadeeva 2013; Biswakarma et al. 2017; Raj et al. 2018; Pala et al. 2019). Plant species used in traditional medicines globally is around 5300 species (Hamilton 2004). As estimated by World Health Organization, about seventy to ninety five percent of people in developing countries rely on the traditional knowledge of plants for health care (World Health Organization 2011). India harbors about 17,000 plant species, of which 7500 are known as medicinal plants (Nayar 2011). About sixty five percent of the Indian population depends on the traditional system of medicine (Timmermans 2003). Ethnobotanical research is important by documenting the traditional knowledge for the conservation and utilization of bio resources (Muthu et al. 2006). Therefore, the establishment of local knowledge of plant species has significant benefits (Baðcý 2000) and this traditional knowledge is kept secret by traditional healers and is only passed to their own generations (Panghal et al. 2010). This part of north-western Himalaya which lies in the state of Uttarakhand is known for dense vegetation with a wide species of medicinal plants and the majority of the medicinal plants have been recorded from this state (Singh et al. 2005; Kala 2004), followed by Sikkim and North Bengal (Samant et al. 1998). The majority of the people from this area are mainly dependent on traditional healers (Vaidyas) for treating diseases (Kala 2000). Indian Himalayan region has been explored by several researchers for use of medicinal plants (Gaur and Sharma 2011; Singh and Rawat 2011; Kumar et al. 2011; Bhat et al. 2013; Malik et al. 2015). Ethnomedicinal knowledge of plant resources has been constantly diminishing due to the influence of global commercialization and socio-economic transformation (Kunwar and Adhikari 2005). Therefore, there is an urgent need to record this traditional knowledge of plants for its medicinal values and it is also important for future drug discovery and development. In the view of above background, the MEDICINAL PRACTICES AND CONSENSUS IN HIMALAYAS 161 Ethno Med, 13(3): 160-168 (2019) present research work was carried out with the following two objectives.