School of Chemistry, University of Wollongong, Northfields Avenue, Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia.
J Ethnopharmacol. 2011 Apr 12;134(3):813-23. doi: 10.1016/j.jep.2011.01.034. Epub 2011 Feb 1.
The Bhutanese form of g.so-ba-rig-pa medicine, which is a scholarly medical system, belongs to a larger system of medicinal corpus that spreads from Mongolia to India. It uses medicinal plants as a bulk ingredient but only 'Higher Elevation Medicinal Plants' have been botanically identified so far. Our study reports the botanical identification of 'Lower Elevation Medicinal Plants' and their ethnomedical uses.
To botanically identify the 'Lower Elevation Medicinal Plants' used in Bhutanese traditional medicine.
A five stage process was conducted which consisted of: (1) a survey of specialized ancient ethnomedical literatures (Pharmacopoeias and formularies); (2) freely listing the 'Lower Elevation Medicinal Plants' reported in the ancient Bhutanese medical texts and translating their ethnomedical uses in equivalent terms of English; (3) making field visits, collecting herbarium specimens and photographs, and spot identification of plants; (4) double blind testing of Bhutanese traditional medicine practitioners for authentication and standardization of Bhutanese g.so-ba-rig-pa names; (5) organising workshops for open forum discussions on medicinal plants involving Traditional Physicians and other professional participants of the relevant areas.
We identified the botanical names of 113 'Lower Elevation Medicinal Plants' belonging to 68 families and 104 genera. Out of 113 medicinal plant species identified, 92 species are currently used in Bhutan and the remaining 21 species were not used in the current formulation, but described in the Bhutanese traditional medical texts. The identification of these 21 species was achieved both ethnomedically and botanically for the first time. Out of the 28 plant species that are currently imported from India, we found for the first time, even to the knowledge of Traditional Physicians, that 16 of them are actually growing abundantly in Bhutan. Among the plant parts collected, seeds were the most prominent followed by fruits and then roots.
Our study identified 113 'Lower Elevation Medicinal Plants' out of which 92 of them are used daily in formulating 102 multi-ingredient prescription medicines in Bhutan.
不丹形式的 g.so-ba-rig-pa 医学是一种学术医学体系，属于从蒙古传播到印度的更大的医学体系。它使用药用植物作为主要成分，但迄今为止仅对“高海拔药用植物”进行了植物学鉴定。我们的研究报告了“低海拔药用植物”的植物学鉴定及其在民族医学中的用途。
对不丹传统医学中使用的“低海拔药用植物”进行植物学鉴定。
进行了五个阶段的过程，包括：（1）调查专门的古代民族医学文献（药典和方剂）；（2）自由列出古代不丹医学文献中报告的“低海拔药用植物”，并将其民族医学用途翻译成英语等效术语；（3）进行实地考察，收集植物标本和照片，并进行植物现场鉴定；（4）对不丹传统医学从业者进行双盲测试，以验证和标准化不丹 g.so-ba-rig-pa 名称；（5）组织研讨会，就药用植物问题进行公开论坛讨论，涉及传统医生和相关领域的其他专业参与者。
我们确定了 113 种属于 68 科 104 属的“低海拔药用植物”的植物学名称。在鉴定的 113 种药用植物物种中，有 92 种目前在不丹使用，其余 21 种未在当前配方中使用，但在不丹传统医学文献中有描述。这些 21 种物种的鉴定首次同时通过民族医学和植物学进行。在目前从印度进口的 28 种植物中，我们首次发现，甚至传统医生也不知道，其中 16 种实际上在不丹大量生长。在收集的植物部分中，种子最为突出，其次是果实，然后是根。
我们的研究确定了 113 种“低海拔药用植物”，其中 92 种被用于在不丹每天配制 102 种多成分处方药物。
