PALAKKAD, INDIA, August 28, 2005: Experts in the Ayurvedic system of medicine have warned that acute shortage of genuine medicinal plants is threatening the very survival of the age-old system, now getting popular worldwide. R. Vasudevan Nair, botanist and consultant of Coimbatore Aryavaidya Pharmacy, says that despite shortage of genuine raw material the overall production of Ayurvedic medicines and allied herbal products is showing a rapid increase. Prof. Vasudevan Nair, who discovered two medicinal plants while heading the Department of Botany of Government Victoria College here, points out that most of the factories get raw material by placing orders with wholesale dealers or agents. Whatever they supply is accepted. Few factories insist on quality. Physical verification is near-impossible because of the quantity involved. In effect, the identification of raw drug is mostly done by dealers and herb-collectors. This has paved the way for the entry of adulterants, substitutes and spurious drugs into the system. One of the major drawbacks in ensuring the genuineness of the raw drug is the controversy over the botanical identity of a large number of raw drugs. Even the publication of Ayurved Pharmacopoeia by the Government has not helped solve the problem. Another source of confusion is the unscientific entry of drugs in Sanskrit literature. Yet another problem is that the authors of ancient texts have named plants according to their whims and fancy. Sarath P. Nair, a leading Ayurveda medical practitioner, admits that the quality of medicine is affected because of the non-availability of a large number of medicinal plants. The shrinking forest cover, the main source of medicinal plants, affects its supply. The only way out is to go in for mass cultivation of medicinal plants to meet the increasing demand.
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