This book highlights the medical importance of and increasing global interest in herbal medicines, herbal health products, herbal pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, food supplements, herbal cosmetics, etc. It also addresses various issues that are hampering the advancement of Indian herbal medicine around the globe; these include quality concerns and quality control, pharmacovigilance, scientific investigation and validation, IPR and biopiracy, and the challenge that various indigenous systems of medicine are at risk of being lost. The book also explores the role of traditional medicine in providing new functional leads and modern approaches that can offer elegant strategies for facilitating the drug discovery process. The book also provides in-depth information on various traditional medicinal systems in India and discusses their medical importance. India has a very long history of safely using many herbal drugs. Folk medicine is also a key source of medical knowledge and plays a vital role in maintaining health in rural and remote areas. Despite its importance, this form of medicine largely remains under-investigated. Out of all the traditional medicinal systems used worldwide, Indian traditional medicine holds a unique position, as it has continued to deliver healthcare throughout the Asian subcontinent since ancient times. In addition, traditional medicine has been used to derive advanced techniques and investigate many modern drugs. Given the scope of its coverage, the book offers a valuable resource for scientists and researchers exploring traditional and herbal medicine, as well as graduate students in courses on traditional medicine, herbal medicine and pharmacy.

This handbook is filled with over 50 illustrations and descriptions of approximately 250 plants which are used for herbal medicine. It includes information on medicinal plants ranging from Abies spectabilis to Zizyphus vulgaris. The purpose of this handbook is to make available a reference for easy, accurate identification of these herbs. Derived from India, "Ayurveda" is the foundation stone of their ancient medical science. Approximately 80 percent of the population of India and other countries in the East continue to utilize this system of medicinal treatment. It is believed that the key to successful medication is the use of the correct herb. This is an indispensable resource for all physicians, pharmacists, drug collectors, and those interested in the healing arts.

From his birth in a village in Andhra to founding and running Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, now one of India’s largest pharmaceutical enterprises, Dr K. Anji Reddy’s journey makes for an inspiring story. That story is told rivetingly in his own words in his memoir, An Unfinished Agenda. Dr Anji Reddy became an entrepreneur at a time when India was woefully short of technology to manufacture many basic medicines. Then, in barely three decades, the Indian pharmaceutical industry had grown to the point that India not only became self-sufficient in medicine, but also a supplier of affordable generic medicines to the world. Dr Anji Reddy provides a ringside view of this remarkable transformation, with fascinating anecdotes about those who made it happen. The history of modern medicine is a gripping story of triumphs and failures. An Unfinished Agenda takes the reader on a whirlwind tour of the science of medicine over the last hundred years and reminds us of the stark challenges that remain.

Interrelated histories of colonial medicine, market and family reveal how Western homeopathy was translated and made vernacular in colonial India.

An analysis of the challenge that India's poison culture posed for colonial rule and toxicology's creation of a public role for science.

India's Indigenous Medical Systems: A Cross-Disciplinary Approach brings together in one volume, essays by historians, botanists and physicians of indigenous as well as Western medicine to show how Indian medicine evolved, constantly adapting itself to the challenges posed by Western medical science. Among other things, this volume also highlights the development of medicine and public health under the patronage of Jahangir; the efficacy of Ayurveda in combating epidemics and fatal diseases; the introduction of vaccination in colonial Bengal and the social resistance to it; the rich heritage of folk and tribal medicine among the tribes of Birbhum; use of traditional herbs which have now become patent drugs for curing serious ailments like jaundice; and the development of organized documentation of ethno-botanical medicine in India. Several essays bring out how there was continuous conflict as well as collaboration between Ayurveda, Unani and Western medicine, and how each system learnt from the other. They also contend, however, that the lack of an understanding of the human anatomy and surgery, and a disregard for scientific research have thwarted the advancement of indigenous medical systems in India.