Ethnomedicine for Bites by the Tribes of Srikakulam District, Andhra Pradesh

Abstract

The paper deals with 46 species of plants covering 44 genera and 34 families used for curing bites by the tribes of Srikakulam district, Andhra Pradesh. Cucurbitaceae is the dominant family with 4 species followed by Fabaceae, Caesalpiniaceae, Mimosaceae, Asclepiadaceae, Verbenaceae, Apocynaceae, Loganiaceae, Menispermaceae, Euphorbiaceae with 2 species each and others. Herbs are more (16) followed by trees (11), shrubs (10), climbers (8) and a lone liane. Root is involved in 13 practices followed by whole plant (9), leaf (8), stem bark and seed (6 each), root bark (5) and others. For snake bite 23 species are exclusively used followed by 8 for scorpion sting, 4 for scorpion and snake bite, 3 each for dog bite and dog and snake bites, 2 for insect bite and others. Crotalaria laburnifolia and 7 practices were found to be new.

Ethnomedicinal plants used by Primitive Nukha Dora tribes of G. Madugula Mandal, Alluri Sitaramaraju District, Andhra Pradesh, India

“…In 1960, Jain started intensive field studies among tribal areas of central India [3][4][5][6][7][8][9]. Ramarao Naidu et al [10] dealt with the ethnomedicobotany of the Srikakulam district and reported 25 plant species belonging to 18 families used by the tribals for curing dental disorders. Rao and Reddi [11] reported 35 tuberous medicinal plant species used for a variety of ailments by certain tribal people of the Visakhapatnam district.…”