Tribal societies, throughout the world, have their respective systems of medicines. Their concepts and attitudes towards the diseases, and the pharmacopeia are different. They also impose prohibition on some specific diets during illness and convalescence. The present book is the result of years of field work on the tribal societies of Lodha (branded by British rulers as criminal tribe), Munda, Oraon and Santal of India supported by commensurate theoretical studies. It brings to the fore the following: 1. Attitude of different tribal societies towards diseases and their causes, 2. Preparation of different medicines, 3. Path of administering the medicines, 4. Magical and religious/superstitious aspects of treatment, 5. Dietary restrictions, 6. Plant resources for beverages and narcotics, 7. Hallucinogenic plants, 8. Poisonous plants, 9. Pesticides, 10. Piscicides, 11. Plants in preservation of stored grains, 12. Plants used for making tattoo marks. A complete and comprehensive documentation of 343 tribal medicinal plants has been made and more 2000 tribal prescriptions have been discussed. All these data have been evaluated in the perspective of other traditional medicine systems of India, viz., Ayurveda, Siddha, Tantra, Unani and the traditional systems of Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Tibet and China.
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