Herbs for medicinal baths among the traditional Yao communities of China.

Medicinal baths are an important traditional way to prevent and cure common diseases among the traditional Yao communities of Jinping County, Yunnan Province, SW China. Approaches of anthropology, ethnobotany, and participatory rural appraisal (PRA) were used to investigate the herbs used for medicinal baths; and 110 medicinal plant species were found to be used by local people to treat a variety of diseases, such as rheumatic diseases, skin diseases, injuries from falls and gynecopathia. Of these 110 species, 6 (5%) had not been previously identified as having medicinal properties, while 87 (79%) were newly recorded for their use in medicinal baths. These new ethnobotanical and medicinal records are a rich source of further phytochemical, pharmacological, and clinical studies on folk herbs in SW China.