Author Description

Plant medicines are in wide use around the world. In most of the developing world, especially in rural areas, local traditional medicine, including herbalism, is the only source of health care for people, while in the developed world, alternative medicine, including use of dietary supplements are marketed aggressively using the claims of traditional medicine; most products made from medicinal plants had not been tested for their safety and efficacy, and products that were marketed in developed economies and provided in the undeveloped world by traditional healers were of uneven quality, sometimes containing dangerous contaminants. The purpose of the monographs is to provide information on the safety, efficacy and quality control/ quality assurance of widely used medicinal plants, in order to facilitate their appropriate uses in a various system of medicine.