book chapter · IntechOpen eBooks
A review of 80 medicinal plant species in Ethiopia documents their traditional applications, plant parts used, ecological distribution, and methods for quality control. Local practitioners rely predominantly on leaves and roots to treat human and livestock ailments, ranging from stomachaches, dysentery, and headaches to malaria, asthma, skin diseases, and cancer. These plants grow across diverse habitats, including riverbanks, woodlands, cultivated fields, and home gardens, serving as vital healthcare resources for most of the population. However, expanding agriculture, urbanisation, deforestation, infrastructure projects, and broader habitat destruction threaten their survival. Preserving these valuable species requires community- and research-led conservation strategies. Standardising and assessing the safety and consistency of these herbal treatments involves pharmaceutical practices alongside macroscopic, microscopic, electrophoretic, and chromatographic techniques.
Traditional medicines provide critical primary healthcare for the majority of the Ethiopian population. Documenting these plant species, their specific uses, and their ecological settings helps guide conservation efforts against habitat loss caused by rapid development. It also supports the implementation of standardised laboratory techniques to verify the quality, consistency, and safety of plant-based remedies used for widespread human and animal illnesses.
This work informs quality assurance and botanical standardisation for herbal remedies, which could assist pharmaceutical practitioners and analytical testing laboratories. By identifying chromatographic, electrophoretic, and microscopic techniques to evaluate common medicinal species, the review outlines early-stage quality control methodologies rather than finished commercial products. Any commercial translation remains at an early stage, depending on the formalisation of these testing procedures and community conservation to secure sustainable supplies of raw plants.
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The main purpose of this review is to document medicinal plants used for traditional treatments with their parts, use, ecology, and quality control. Accordingly, 80 medicinal plant species were reviewed; leaves and roots are the main parts of the plants used for preparation of traditional medicines. The local practitioners provided various traditional medications to their patients’ diseases such as stomachaches, asthma, dysentery, malaria, evil eyes, cancer, skin diseases, and headaches. The uses of medicinal plants for human and animal treatments are practiced from time immemorial. Stream/riverbanks, cultivated lands, disturbed sites, bushlands, forested areas and their margins, woodlands, grasslands, and home gardens are major habitats of medicinal plants. Generally, medicinal plants used for traditional medicine play a significant role in the healthcare of the majority of the people in Ethiopia. The major threats to medicinal plants are habitat destruction, urbanization, agricultural expansion, investment, road construction, and deforestation. Because of these, medicinal plants are being declined and lost with their habitats. Community- and research-based conservation mechanisms could be an appropriate approach for mitigating the problems pertinent to the loss of medicinal plants and their habitats and for documenting medicinal plants. Chromatography; electrophoretic, macroscopic, and microscopic techniques; and pharmaceutical practice are mainly used for quality control of herbal medicines.
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DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.86202
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