About a generation ago, the use of plants and herbs as remedial agents was greatly discredited. The late Sir Thomas Lauder Brunton drew an analogy between the weapons and tools employed in art or warfare, and the implements used by man in the treatment of disease in different ages. It is customary to divide the progress of civilization into four stages, characterized by the nature of the weapons employed. "In the first or Paleolithic age, man employed weapons or tools of flint roughly chipped into shape and unpolished. In the next or Neolithic age, the implements consisted of stone, bat they were polished. The next age is characterized by the employment of bronze as a material, and the fourth and highest stage by the employment of iron. * * * * In the same way, we may recognise four stages in the development of the implements in the treatment of disease. In the first stage crude drugs were employed, prepared in the roughest manner, such as powdered Cinchona or metallic antimony. In the next stage, these were converted into more active and more manageable forms, such as extracts or solutions, watery or alcoholic. In the third stage, the pure active principles, separated from the crude drugs, were employed, e.g., morphine and quinine. In the fourth stage, instead of attempting to
for food on wild animals captured in the chase, to watch them closely so as to know their habits. * *
"That a good deal of man's medicinal knowledge arose accidentally in his efforts to extend the range of his food supply is suggested by the prominent place occupied by food — stuffs in primitive pharmacy".
The ancient Hindus should be given the credit for cultivating what is now called " Ethno-botany". In Bulletin 55 of the Bureau of American Ethnology, it is said : —
"Ethnobotany is virtually a new field of research, a field which, if investigated thoroughly and systematically will yield results of great value to the ethnologist and incidentally also to the botanist. * * *
Ethnobotanical research is concerned with several important questions:— (a) What are primitive ideas and conceptions of plant life ? (b) "What are the effects of a given plant environment on the lives, customs, religion, thoughts and everyday practical affairs of the people studied? (c) What use do they make of the plants about them for food, for medicine, for material culture, for ceremonial purposes? (d) What is the extent of their knowledge of the parts, functions, and activities of plants? (e) Into what categories are plant names and words that deal with plants grouped in the language of the people studied, and what can be learned concerning the working of the folkmind by the study of these names?
Ethnobotany will become a more important subject when its study has progressed to a point where results can be studied comparatively.
A prime necessity is a good native informant; indeed it is better to have several informants, preferably older men or women."
What a pity that hardly any attention is paid to this subject in modern India.
