‘108 plants used for curing ailing women in rural Sindh’

A study, conducted by the International Centre for Chemical and Biological Sciences (ICCBS), University of Karachi, has shown that as many as 108 plants are used in rural Sindh for curing women having various medical conditions.

According to the study, the local population relies on medicinal plants for their health-related matters. “In Sindh, traditional medicines are not only used for the treatment of general diseases but also for the treatment of women-specific health issues like birth control.” 

It also discusses the myth regarding women conceiving a male child with the help of herbal formulation.

This research is considered as one of the most useful studies carried out at the ICCBS, KU. The main objective of the research is to establish a database of traditional knowledge to be used in protecting the knowledge-base and for further studies.

ICCBS Director Professor Dr M Iqbal Choudhary shared these views on Tuesday while talking to a team of natural product chemists at the Panjwani Centre for Molecular Medicine and Drug Research, KU.

He asserted that this is the first time in the history of Pakistan that authentic ethnobotanical information of folk medicinal practices in rural areas of Sindh, in the form of reports, databases and monographs, has been documented.

Under this study, 24 districts of Sindh were surveyed during the period of 2010 and 2012. During the survey of villages, midwives, elderly women and herbalists were interviewed by the team, and useful information collected about plant-based remedies was compiled in the form of a monograph.

Prof Choudhary informed the scientists that some of the study’s main objectives were to preserve the indigenous healing knowledge related to womenfolk’s diseases, and establish a database of traditional knowledge to be used in protecting the knowledge-base and for further studies.

He said that in Pakistan, about 6,000 plants were recorded as native or naturalised. “Sindh has a diversity of vegetation and the local population has always used medicinal plants for the treatment of various diseases throughout the history.”

Prof Choudhary observed that these plants played a significant role in providing primary healthcare services to the rural population in Sindh, and they served as therapeutic agents as well as important raw materials for the manufacturing of traditional and modern medicines.

“Sindh has a wealth of traditional knowledge about indigenous flora and its utilisation. People used these medicinal plants on the basis of their own experience due to lack of medicines, allopathic doctors and fear of side effects associated with modern medicine.”

He said some important medicinal plants, including Acacia Nilotica L. Willd, Salvia Plebeia R. Brown, Terminalia Chebula Retz and Withania Coagulans Dunal, were used for the treatment of menorrhagia, backache during menstruation, infertility and scanty menses.

According to the professor, these plants are used alone or in combination with other plants or inorganic materials (rock salt, red earth).

“In these rural areas women with specific diseases are often not taken to the hospitals for proper care as they are generally treated by the family’s elder ladies or midwives by using medicinal plants and other household items or so-called kitchen pharmacy. Due to this, connectional knowledge of the use of plants has been accumulated over the years, which needs to be properly documented and scientifically evaluated.”