African Traditional Plant Knowledge Today
African Traditional Plant Knowledge Today

Author: Mohamed Pakia

Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 9783825890568

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This book is an unusually exploration of the ethnobotanical study, through interdisciplinary approach, that combines linguistics, botany and anthropological aspects. It gives an in-depth account of the practical life of the Digo in their day-to-day knowledge and conception of the plant world. The Digo were involved in the study as a representative of the African ethnic groups, which provides for a scholastic challenge to prove other wise. The subject matter is drawn from the general botanical topics, viz plant description, naming, identification, and classification. The coverage, however, is incomplete without considering the fields of plant knowledge application such as agriculture and healing. The book provides for evidence to recognise that, although unwritten, the African Traditional Plant knowledge is not muddled, as first impressions might suggest.

African Traditional Medicine
African Traditional Medicine

Author: Hans Dieter Neuwinger

Publisher:

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 606

ISBN-13:

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This book documents the traditional knowledge and use of African medicinal plants. In total more than 5,400 plants from south of the Sahara to the Cape are listed and over 16,300 medicinal applications with plant part, details on method of preparation and dosage.

African Ethnobotany in the Americas
African Ethnobotany in the Americas

Author: Robert Voeks

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-09-25

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 1461408369

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African Ethnobotany in the Americas provides the first comprehensive examination of ethnobotanical knowledge and skills among the African Diaspora in the Americas. Leading scholars on the subject explore the complex relationship between plant use and meaning among the descendants of Africans in the New World. With the aid of archival and field research carried out in North America, South America, and the Caribbean, contributors explore the historical, environmental, and political-ecological factors that facilitated/hindered transatlantic ethnobotanical diffusion; the role of Africans as active agents of plant and plant knowledge transfer during the period of plantation slavery in the Americas; the significance of cultural resistance in refining and redefining plant-based traditions; the principal categories of plant use that resulted; the exchange of knowledge among Amerindian, European and other African peoples; and the changing significance of African-American ethnobotanical traditions in the 21st century. Bolstered by abundant visual content and contributions from renowned experts in the field, African Ethnobotany in the Americas is an invaluable resource for students, scientists, and researchers in the field of ethnobotany and African Diaspora studies.

Medicinal Plants of East Africa
Medicinal Plants of East Africa

Author: J. O. Kokwaro

Publisher: University of Nairobi Press

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 22

ISBN-13: 9966846840

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Medicinal Plants of East Africa is a revised edition of the book first published in 1976 on herbal remedies and he traditional medical practice of East Africa. The book covers the rich diversity of plants found in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, from sea to alpine plants. East Africa also has a rich ethnic diversity and a large number of herbalists whose traditional knowledge and practices are also covered in the book. Over 1500 species are described and for the first time over 200 of these herbs have been illustrated. Also included are maps detailing where the herbs were collected and an ethnographic map detailing the tribes of each herbalist whose knowledge is contained in the book. John Kokwaro is an Eminent Professor of Botany and a research specialist on herbal remedies at the University of Nairobi.

Bitter Roots
Bitter Roots

Author: Abena Dove Osseo-Asare

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2014-01-13

Total Pages: 309

ISBN-13: 022608616X

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For over a century, plant specialists worldwide have sought to transform healing plants in African countries into pharmaceuticals. And for equally as long, conflicts over these medicinal plants have endured, from stolen recipes and toxic tonics to unfulfilled promises of laboratory equipment and usurped personal patents. In Bitter Roots, Abena Dove Osseo-Asare draws on publicly available records and extensive interviews with scientists and healers in Ghana, Madagascar, and South Africa to interpret how African scientists and healers, rural communities, and drug companies—including Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Unilever—have sought since the 1880s to develop drugs from Africa’s medicinal plants. Osseo-Asare recalls the efforts to transform six plants into pharmaceuticals: rosy periwinkle, Asiatic pennywort, grains of paradise, Strophanthus, Cryptolepis, and Hoodia. Through the stories of each plant, she shows that herbal medicine and pharmaceutical chemistry have simultaneous and overlapping histories that cross geographic boundaries. At the same time, Osseo-Asare sheds new light on how various interests have tried to manage the rights to these healing plants and probes the challenges associated with assigning ownership to plants and their biochemical components. A fascinating examination of the history of medicine in colonial and postcolonial Africa, Bitter Roots will be indispensable for scholars of Africa; historians interested in medicine, biochemistry, and society; and policy makers concerned with drug access and patent rights.

Handbook of African Medicinal Plants, Second Edition
Handbook of African Medicinal Plants, Second Edition

Author: Maurice M. Iwu

Publisher: CRC Press

Published: 2014-02-04

Total Pages: 508

ISBN-13: 1466571977

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With over 50,000 distinct species in sub-Saharan Africa alone, the African continent is endowed with an enormous wealth of plant resources. While more than 25 percent of known species have been used for several centuries in traditional African medicine for the prevention and treatment of diseases, Africa remains a minor player in the global natural products market largely due to lack of practical information. This updated and expanded second edition of the Handbook of African Medicinal Plants provides a comprehensive review of more than 2,000 species of plants employed in indigenous African medicine, with full-color photographs and references from over 1,100 publications. The first part of the book contains a catalog of the plants used as ingredients for the preparation of traditional remedies, including their medicinal uses and the parts of the plant used. This is followed by a pharmacognostical profile of 170 of the major herbs, with a brief description of the diagnostic features of the leaves, flowers, and fruits and monographs with botanical names, common names, synonyms, African names, habitat and distribution, ethnomedicinal uses, chemical constituents, and reported pharmacological activity. The second part of the book provides an introduction to African traditional medicine, outlining African cosmology and beliefs as they relate to healing and the use of herbs, health foods, and medicinal plants. This book presents scientific documentation of the correlation between the observed folk use and demonstrable biological activity, as well as the characterized constituents of the plants.

Toxicological Survey of African Medicinal Plants
Toxicological Survey of African Medicinal Plants

Author: Victor Kuete

Publisher: Elsevier

Published: 2014-05-30

Total Pages: 742

ISBN-13: 0128004754

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Toxicological Survey of African Medicinal Plants provides a detailed overview of toxicological studies relating to traditionally used medicinal plants in Africa, with special emphasis on the methodologies and tools used for data collection and interpretation. The book considers the physical parameters of these plants and their effect upon various areas of the body and human health, including chapters dedicated to genotoxicity, hepatotoxicity, nephrotoxicity, cardiotoxicity, neurotoxicity, and specific organs and systems.Following this discussion of the effects of medicinal plants is a critical review of the guidelines and methods in use for toxicological research as well as the state of toxicology studies in Africa. With up-to-date research provided by a team of experts, Toxicological Survey of African Medicinal Plants is an invaluable resource for researchers and students involved in pharmacology, toxicology, phytochemistry, medicine, pharmacognosy, and pharmaceutical biology. - Offers a critical review of the methods used in toxicological survey of medicinal plants - Provides up-to-date toxicological data on African medicinal plants and families - Serves as a resource tool for students and scientists in the various areas of toxicology

Assigning Medicinal Plant Value and Estimating Traditional Environmental Knowledge in Ghana, Africa Using Ethnobotanical Measures
Assigning Medicinal Plant Value and Estimating Traditional Environmental Knowledge in Ghana, Africa Using Ethnobotanical Measures

Author:

Publisher:

Published: 2004

Total Pages:

ISBN-13:

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Over the past 15 years, the West African country of Ghana has lost roughly 25% of its forest cover, leading to a decline in both traditional environmental knowledge and species. This research contributes to the literature by exploring how to best assess knowledge loss and identify important species that provide incentives for conservation. I apply and evaluate ethnobotanical measures to meet the objectives of 1) documenting knowledge of medicinal plants, 2) identifying the most locally important medicinal plants, and 3) assessing current level and distribution of traditional plant knowledge. I assign plant importance by several measures (including frequency cited, number of uses, and informant consensus), while developing and testing three new applications of the informant consensus method. Medicinal plant knowledge is well established in the area, and identified important plants are confirmed by literature as being effective. There is no difference between sexes or ages in the number of medicinal plants named (suggesting little knowledge loss), but there is a difference in which species are named (suggesting knowledge change and potential for future losses). Accessibility to and use of western medicine drives the traditional knowledge loss, and thus, I recommend the encouragement of sustainable use to conserve knowledge. An informant consensus measure, which uses a logarithmic function to assign value to plant use, is identified as the most appropriate estimator of plant importance.

Traditional and Religious Plants of West Africa
Traditional and Religious Plants of West Africa

Author: Daniel K. Abbiw

Publisher:

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 694

ISBN-13: 9789988600877

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Traditional and Religious Plants of West Africa is a collection of plant uses that appear to be based on beliefs, symbols, signs and values. Nothing like this has been attempted before for the Region since the information has been scattered in books, papers and among traditional men and women themselves. Much of this local information is in danger of being lost as traditional rural life gives way to urban living with its detachment from the countryside. The information has been compiled from literature, general observation and from original, reliably authoritative and undeniably genuine knowledge extracted from exclusive interviews with elders, medicine-men, fetish priests and witch-doctors - many though illiterate and belonging to the dying breed.This book will not only be a constant source of reference, but the text in its own right will intrigue readers. It is prepared for the general reader as well as the specialist; and for the traditionalist as well as the scientist. Hence, technical terms are kept to a minimum or where used are fully explained.