Medicinal plants used by the people of Northeast India for curing malaria.

The present study showed that the people of the Northeastern region of India use at least 65 plants belonging to 38 families to treat malaria. Different plant parts such as the leaf, root, bark and fruit and in some cases the whole plant were used for making the herbal preparations. All crude preparations were made using water as the medium. The preparations were orally administered either as a plant crude extract, juice and decoction or leaf infusion. Of the 65 plants, 21 were found to be used in the form of a decoction. The hard parts of the herbs such as the root and bark were taken in the form of a decoction. In some cases the ingredients of the herbal preparation also included honey or sugar. The present investigation also indicated that most of the preparations made for curing malaria were derived from single plant sources. (c) 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.