There is no letter that cannot be used for composing some mantra or the other, no root that cannot be utilized as some medicine or the other and no person who cannot be put to some use or the other. It is only the proper employer whom we lack here”—so declares this ancient Sanskrit saying. This does not mean that all plants are presumed to be automatically medicinal.
There are many which are not only not medicinal but are actually poisonous and in fact downright fatal. Still however even poisonous plants if administered judiciously after knowing their specifications and in carefully planned dosage will often become efficient curatives. The statement merely highlights the widely scattered medicinal value among the plants and more importantly the need to know the specialties underlying and utilize that knowledge to the purpose required.
What makes a plant medicinal and how does one go about discovering it? The famous Cinchona plant which yields quinine that has revolutionized the treatment of the great scourge of malaria in man never suffers from malaria by itself! Then, why does it produce quinine at all? It is difficult to answer this question, for quinine is not known to have any useful role in the life activity or the metabolism of the Cinchona plant.
This merely happens to be an Incidental by-product of its biosynthesis or the complex series of synthetic chemical activities that the live plant of Cinchona carries out. It is just the ingenuity of man which has found out a great therapeutic or a medicinal use for such a product and has then employed this knowledge for his own benefit. Discovering a plant as to whether it is medicinal or not and if so, in what way is it medicinal and so on are thus hundred per cent discoveries. What clues one possess to do so? Quite often, this is sheer accident.
The astonishing medicinal value of the Common Neem tree Is one such superb discovery of ancient India. This has provided effective and bountiful cure for hundred ailments and has thus become a common man’s boon. Modern science has also attempted to explain its myriad actions in the human body and explore possibilities of finding still further and fresh uses from this abundant natural resource. A striking illustration of such a possibility is given below:
This also highlights the value of modern medical research in India and its reliance on plant sources. Vitamin-A is an important essential for body growth and is almost indispensable to child development. American scientists of multinationals have recently claimed a great value for their laboratory synthesized vitamin A as a desirable supplement to deficient children of poor countries.
This however has been proved incorrect now. Instead, it is more advisable to use the natural plant sources rather than go in for importing this costly synthetic product. Carotenoids are yellow pigments extensively available in many kinds of fruits and vegetables, specially green leafy vegetables. More than four hundred different carotenoids have been isolated thus. Only fifty of them give rise to vitamin A routinely when eaten along with food.
Greens, drumstick leaves, fruits like oranges and ripe mangoes, papayas and carrots are excellent sources of those carotenoids that yield vitamin A. It is important to note that all types of carotenoids, even if they do not lead to vitamin A formation in body are effective in preventing some types of cancer, particularly skin cancer and lung cancer.
Vitamin A deficiency is quite extensive in the infants of the less developed countries and this often results in blindness and even death. Supplementation with large amounts of vitamin A leads to rapid cure and is therefore regularly practiced. However, synthetic vitamin A is unnecessary, costly and ineffective. We have abundant and extensive sources in the common plants all around us.