Phytochemical and Pharmacognostic Investigation of Tanacetum Parthenium, Hypericum Perforatum, and Evodia Rutaecarpa Plants

Abstract

      Medicinal plants still play important roles in the daily lives of people living in developing countries of Asia and Africa, including Ethiopia. Medicinal plants not only serve as complements or substitutes for modern medical treatments, which are often inadequately available but also enhance the health and security of local people. Thus, these plants play indispensable roles in daily life and are deeply connected to diverse social, cultural, and economic events associated with life, aging, illness, and death. Medicinal plants are used to treat and diagnose diseases and infections. From ancient times, plants have been rich sources of effective and safe medicines. The world health organization defined traditional medicine as the total combination of knowledge and practices that can be formally explained or used in the prevention and elimination of physical, mental, or social imbalance and relying exclusively on practical experience and observation handed down from generation to generation, whether verbally or in writing. About 75–90% of the rural population in the world (excluding western countries) relies on traditional medicines as their only health care system. This is not only because of poverty where people cannot afford to buy expensive modern drugs, but traditional systems are also more culturally acceptable and meet the psychological needs in a way modern medicine does not. Ethnomedicinal practices are believed to be one of the potential bases for the development of safe and effective treatments. Ethiopia has a long history of a traditional health care system, but studies on traditional medicinal plants have been limited in comparison to the country’s multiethnic, cultural, and flora diversity Also, the use of medicinal plants to treat infections is an old practice in large parts of Ethiopia to solve health problems for livestock and humans.