Abstracto

Ethnomedicinal studies on plants used by people of Rif, Morocco

Noureddine Chaachouay

Plants are used for medicative functions long before prehistoric amount. Ancient Unani manuscripts Egyptian papyrus and Chinese writings delineate the employment of herbs. Proof exist that Unani Hakims, Indian Vaids and European and Mediterranean cultures were victimisation herbs for over 4000 years as medication. Endemic cultures like Rome, Egypt, Iran, continent and America used herbs in their healing rituals, whereas alternative developed ancient medical systems like Unani, piece of writing and Chinese medication during which seasoning therapies were used consistently. Traditional systems of drugs still be wide experienced on several accounts. Population rise, inadequate offer of medicine, prohibitory price of treatments, facet effects of many artificial medication and development of resistance to presently used medication for infectious diseases have diode to augmented stress on the employment of plant materials as a supply of medicines for a good form of human ailments. Before the conception of history began, humans doubtless nonheritable life edges by discovering medicative and aromatic plants that were food and medication. As our early ancestors learned to acknowledge and consume chosen plants, civilization and private and cluster health may advance. Ancient medication would become a part of each civilization with medicative and aromatic plants wide used and applied to keep up life. Doubtless, the range of accessible plant materials would be tasted and tested to see whether or not a plant was valuable as a food or medication. Today, a spread of accessible herbs and spices square measure used and enjoyed throughout the globe and still promote physiological state. Because the edges from medicative and aromatic plants square measure recognized, these plants can have a special role for humans within the future. From the start, human life in prehistoric time was doubtless troublesome. To survive, our ancestors required food for energy and medication to keep up health. Whereas a high-energy food, like meat, would be on the market by searching animals, medicines to treat afflictions were doubtless harder to seek out. Though fashionable science has discovered plants and plant extracts that may treat and cure diseases, locating and distinctive plants that contained health-promoting constituents throughout prehistoric time would be problematic. The oldest on the market medicative records, written in 5000–3000 BCE by Sumerians on clay tablets, demonstrate that humans understood diseases which the employment of medicine-containing plants may facilitate maintain and restore physiological state. Medicative plants discovered on the preserved body referred to as Ötzi, the Iceman that was accidently killed between 3400 and 3100 BCE within the cold, mountainous Alps, suggests that others were awake to medicative plants. Whereas the history of our early ancestors and medicines is incomplete, the worth of medicative plants in solidifying and maintaining health is absolutely recognized. Plants, that square measure subject to destruction by hunt animals and insects, doubtless survived by manufacturing repulsive, distasteful chemical constituents that repelled hunt animals. Humans may be selective within the components of a plant they might eat, perceptive that intense some plant tissues, like fruit, leaves, or roots of some species, created individuals feel higher. From these initial beginnings, gardens of fascinating plants would be established for the food and therefore the plant constituents that helped humans stay healthy. Encouraging plenty of practices, the information went all the way down to later ages. On the opposite hand, numerous climates on earth have inspired the choice of species, eventually several regional specific distinctive medicative and aromatic plants exist within the whole world. medicative and aromatic plants and ethnobotany were used for an inventive medication of every civilizations and cultures. The movement of human causes the unfold of data and distribution of materials. Since early times, the people of Morocco use medicinal and aromatic plants as traditional medicine to heal different human ailments. However, little studies have been made in the past to properly document and promote the traditional ethnomedical knowledge. This study was carried out in the Rif (North of Morocco), it aimed to establish the catalog of medicinal plants and to identify medicinal and aromatic plant used by the local people to treat diseases, together with the associated ethnomedicinal knowledge. The ethnomedical information collected was from 1000 local healers using semi-structured interviews, free listing and focus group. Family importance value (FIV), relative frequency of citation (RFC), plant part value (PPV), fidelity level (FL) and informant consensus factor (ICF) were employed in data analysis. Medicinal and aromatic plant were collected, identified and kept at the natural resources and biodiversity laboratory, Ibn Tofail University, Kenitra. The results of this study showed the existence of indigenous ethnomedicinal knowledge of medicinal plants in the Moroccan Rif to treat diseases. Further research on phytochemical, pharmacological and toxicological should be considered to discover new drugs from these documented plants.