European Journal of Molecular & Clinical Medicine

Abstract

Phytotherapy continues to play an important role in the prevention and treatment of diseases (communicable and non-communicable). Amazingly, more than 80% of the global populations nowadays adopt phytotherapy as a basic source of maintaining good healthy conditions, owing to the pronounced side effects, non-availability, and expensive nature of conventional treatment options. . A number of medicinal plants had been resourceful (effective) against a range of diseases, with few developed into drugs based on the available phytotherapeutics, quite a large number of them are yet to scale through clinical trials to determine their safety and efficacy. The origin of the medicinal plants use had been since time immemorial and traced back to Europe and Egypt many centuries ago. The first records of knowledge documentation were, however, produced by Shen Nung (a Chinese emperor) 2500 BC ago, describing different recipes of drug preparation from 300 medicinal plants for the management of numerous human diseases (1).