Sustainable utilization of medicinal plants and conservation strategies practiced by the aboriginals of Purulia district, India: a case study on therapeutics used against some tropical otorhinolaryngologic and ophthalmic disorders

Purulia, the land of distinctive geological and archaeological features, abundant natural resources and a home to a number of aboriginals, has been studied widely to apprehend the role of ethnic remedies against myriad of diseases. Availability of natural remedies and practice of traditional knowledge have popularized the use of medicinal plants among local communities. The objective of the study is to elucidate the use of folk medicine against common otorhinolaryngologic and ophthalmic medical conditions, by various ethnic groups of Purulia district, West Bengal, India. A completely randomized ethnobotanical approach was carried out during a number of field visits conducted to interview 55 traditional healers (THs) residing across the 20 blocks of district Purulia via semi-structured open-ended questionnaire. The similarity of usage of plants for different diseases was calculated by the informant consensus factor (Fic), whereas fidelity level indicated the plants mostly cited by the informants. The correlative importance of the usage of the plants was measured by the use value (UV). A total number of 28 plant species belonging to 27 genera and 20 families are reported in this present study in the treatment of a number of otorhinolaryngologic and ophthalmic ailments such as cough and cold, eye diseases (sore eye, red eye, eye inflammation and conjunctivitis), ear diseases (earache and pus in ears), nosebleed and throat infection. The highest value for informant’s consensus factor (Fic) was observed in cough and cold (0.87) that indicates most of the plants possess analgesic and antipyretic potential, whereas the lowest value (0.33) was shown by sore eye that denotes least number of plants have been applied for eye cure. Mostly, leaf part (41.4%) is utilized to cure selected otorhinolaryngologic and ophthalmic disorders where most of the herbal formulations were applied as leaf juices (60.7%). Most significant plant species were Piper nigrum L., Ocimum sanctum L. and Zingiber officinale Roscoe according to their highest UV (1.80), followed by Andrographis paniculata (Burm. f.) Wall. ex Nees (1.79) and Justicia adhatoda L. (1.66). The present work represents first quantitative ethnobotanical study against some tropical otorhinolaryngologic and ophthalmic disorders in remote areas of Purulia district where acute poverty, underprivileged livelihood, illiteracy, unavailability of conventional health care as well as age-old trust on THs have popularized the use of natural resources (i.e. medicinal plants). Many of the reported ethnomedicinal properties of some plants have been backed up by clinical data also. Aboriginal people also showed keen interest and knowledge regarding conservation of endangered medicinal plants and on sustainable utilization of botanical resources. Proper documentation of traditional knowledge and potential preclinical and clinical studies based on the ethnobotanical data procured may be suggested for safe and efficacious use of herbal medicine against otorhinolaryngologic and ophthalmic disorders.