Journal of Ethnopharmacology

Available online 27 March 2015

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Ethnomedicinal uses of plants for the treatment of snake and scorpion bite in Northern Pakistan

• Maryam Akram Butt^a,
• Mushtaq Ahmad^{a, ,} ,
• Anam Fatima^a,
• Shazia Sultana^a,
• Muhammad Zafar^a,
• Ghulam Yaseen^a,
• Muhammad Aqeel Ashraf^b,
• Zabta Khan Shinwari^c,
• Sadaf Kayani^a

doi:10.1016/j.jep.2015.03.045

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Abstract

Ethno-pharmacological relevance

Medicinal plants represent one of the most accessible resources available for snake and scorpion bite among the rural communities of Northern Pakistan. This first ethno-botanical study aimed to document the indigenous knowledge and practices of using plants for snake and scorpion bite disorders in Northern Pakistan.

Methods

Ethno-medicinal data is documented from 187 informants using semi-structured interviews. The data is analyzed using quantitative ethno-botanical indices of frequency citation (FC) and relative Frequency of Citation (RFC). In addition to this, the ethno-medicinal findings of this survey were compared with 10 previous published studies in order to report novel uses of medicinal plants against snake and scorpion bite disorders.

Results

In total 62 medicinal plants belonging to 40 families are reported against snake and scorpion bite in this study. Our results showed that Asteraceae is the most used family (10 species), dominant life form is herb (48.38%), leaves were the most used plants part (18 Use-reports) and the paste is most used method of administration (22 reports). The range of RFC was 0.08–0.27 about the use of documented species. Compared to previous published studies, 33.87% similarity index while 66.12% novelty index is reported. About 40 plant species are first time reported with medicinal uses against snake and scorpion bite from Northern Pakistan.

Conclusions

This study presents useful traditional knowledge of rural communities for the control of snake and scorpion bite using medicinal plants. The study mainly focused on ethno-medicinal documentation to preserve the valuable traditional knowledge that can be used in future phytochemical and pharmacological studies on medicinal plants of the area.

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Graphical abstract

Keywords

• Medicinal plants;
• Snake and scorpion bite;
• Traditional knowledge;
• Communities;
• Northern Pakistan

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Copyright © 2015 Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.