PLANT RESEARCH IN A NEW PERSPECTIVE

In India and elsewhere research on medicinal plant is purely oriented towards developing potential drugs from plants. The cue for its therapeutic activity was taken from hundreds of folklores, Ayurveda, Siddha, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) etc., No effort has been made so far in the main stream for developing a protocol for plant research for medicinal purposes. China which embraced an integrated approach to revitalize the TCM has also been following the direction initiated by the West. India as well as China, should develop an independent methodology. The question is whether the research is to help develop new drugs for modern medicine or to help to enrich the indigenous health cultures.