Using plants for health: indigenous knowledge in health care in a tribal region of Bihar, India

While the potential of indigenous knowledge for health care is fully recogn ised in the literature and by many health professionals, the practices of s o many indigenous peoples go unrecorded and untested. Indigenous knowledge remains essentially untapped, an unwritten resource involving information, language and skills in many groups, languages, cultures and environments. A n attempt is made in this paper to identify selected indigenous health tech nologies in a tribal area of Bihar State, India; to describe the treatments , their application and preparation; and to link the traditional practice w ith the relevant scientific information to test or determine the validity o f the practices. These practices were found to be effective in the treatmen t of a variety of health problems, and most were also scientifically confir med. The paper argues, however, that other plant uses practised by tribal p eople still need to be explored: in order to popularise more widely the aut henticated practices; to preserve indigenous knowledge; to integrate or ble nd it with scientific knowledge so that health professionals and healthcare users may benefit from a wider range of healthcare strategies which are en vironmentally unthreatening.