Abstract

EUPHORBIA SPP AND THEIR USE IN TRADITIONAL MEDICINES: A REVIEW

Shobha Johari and *Ashwani Kumar

Abstract

Rapid increase in population growth is causing strain on medical resources world wide. Traditional folk medicines are region-specific, local resources based indigenous herb based, village based, and in many cases, community-specific. Different systems of medicine developed accordingly, which have been termed as Ayurvedic, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Malaysian, Yunani and more recently Homoeopathic. The value of ethnomedicine and traditional pharmacology is nowadays achieving great appreciation in modern medicine, because the search for new potential medicinal plants is frequently based on an ethnomedicinal basis. In order to document the ethnobotanical uses of some medicinal plants of genus Euphorbia, survey was carried out during the year 2005, in many districts in Thar Desert. Several plants of family Euphorbiaceae produce valuable chemicals used as biofuels, and are also in traditional medicines. Two important plants Euphorbia tirucalli and Euphorbia antisypilitica were studied for their use in traditional medicines. A review of literature on Euphorbia sp is presented.

Keywords: Traditional medicines, Euphorbia tirucalli, Euphorbia antisypilitica, Terpenoids.