Ethnomedicinal plants of Mansoora, Malegaon

An ethnobotanical survey of Mansoora, Malegaon, India was conducted to record the plants and mentioned in the present paper. The people living in the surroundings of Mansoora use these plants to meet their daily requirements of medicine, food, fodder and shelter. The ethnomedicinal uses range in diverse diseases like gonorrhoea, impotency, irregular menstruation, stomach complaints, white discharge, prostate enlargement, urinary stones, goiter, pimples, ringworm, jaundice, toothache, rheumatism etc.; apart from common diseases/ailments like fever, cold, cough, headache, burns, snake bite and swellings. The botanical and vernacular names, family, plant part used and traditional uses are given for each plant. The present study aims to draw the attention of phytochemists and pharmacologists to the need of further critical study. If the efficacy of each plant is scientifically established then these plant drugs can be recommended to the rural people who can frequently employ these potential drugs due to their availability

Environment and health, challenges of the new millennium

More than a century after John Snow identified a hand pump in Broad Street, London as the Primary source of cholera epidemic, then raging through the areas, supply of safe water and providing human excreta disposal facilities to all, still remain illusive targets in most communities in India, particularly in rural areas. Today the urban population of the country is at the interface of the process of development and environmental degradation, concurrently the rural population continues to suffer from lack of sanitation and safe drinking water, malnutrition and ecological insecurity. Ecological degradation brings in its wake, poverty and ill health and they combine to jeopardize the productivity of the country. Unfortunately, however, the costs of their health impact were never considered seriously by the economic planners