Adilabad: Even today, many people use traditional ‘medicines’ to get cured of health issues in rural and tribal areas in the erstwhile Adilabad district.
Many people say they drink juices and apply liquids extracted from the bark of medicinal plants for body and joint pains and even to get cured from paralysis.
Most of the time, people get alternative medicinal treatment available locally for seasonal diseases like typhoid, cough, fever, Chikungunya (body pains and joint pains), and dengue.
People in rural areas strongly believe that their platelet count has improved by drinking of liquids extracted from herbs and medicinal plants.
Basa Prabhakar of Yapalguda of Adilabad mandal who practices traditional medicine said he has been using herbs, leaves, bark and tubes of many medicinal plants available in the local forests to cure people suffering from various ailments. He said most of the time medicines he gave to patients gave positive results.
He cured many people including women of their health issues including paralysis and gynecological problems in the last 30 years and added that he learned the ‘Ayurvedic’ treatment from his father.
He said ‘Penukakar Gadda’, ‘Garaka’, ‘Kothimeera’ and barks of ‘Mucha Thuniki’ available in local forests have medicinal values and are used to cure different health ailments and added that very few people are left in the villages who can identify the medicinal plants, tubers and herbs which work like medicines and cure health problems.
The traditional knowledge about many medicinal plants is not transmitted to new generation and gradually disappears with old generation. Prabhakar said people will get relief and start walking in two to three months if liquids made of medicinal plants are applied on the body especially on the legs and hands. He added that most of the medicines for various ailments should be taken along with alcohol and then only the medicine works.
He said medicine plants will be found only if there is a forest and insisted on forest conservation. He said many useful medicinal plants disappeared over time with the excessive pesticides farmers use as anti-weed in agriculture fields.
Gijja Ushanna of Kothaguda of Adilabad mandal said they have been using alternative medicines whenever he developed body swelling and joint pains and added that he got positive results when they used locally available traditional medicines for paralysis and joint pains. He said state and central governments should take steps to protect medicinal plants, tubers and herbs available in the forests and forest conservation is a must for it. He said the state government should raise medicinal plants as part of its Swachadanam and Pachadanam programme being implemented in the state.
However, doctors who practice allopathic medicines say traditional medicines pose a life threat since there is no standardisation of them. Many times, patients will get a negative impact with high doses of traditional medicines.
