Abstract
Background:
Folklore surveys had been a source of development of potential new drugs all over the world. Mumps is a keen extensive disease caused by virus with well-recognized symptoms and complications. In India, a number of herbal drugs have been used as home remedies to cure mumps. This study aimed to create an inventory of the folklore use of medicinal plants in the treatment of mumps in selected states in north India.
Methods:
A survey was carried out by using a questionnaire on 98 subjects involved in traditional medication in Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Uttrakhand, and Union Territories of Chandigarh. Botanical information regarding recognized plants was collected properly and data were further analyzed by using the relative frequency of citation (RFC).
Results:
As per survey, 23 plant species from 16 families were identified, and the most commonly used plant for treatment of mumps was found to be Glycyrrhiza glabra with RFC value 0.877 followed by Curcuma longa (0.867). It is pertinent to mention that only one clinical study has been done on Mimosa pudica plant with RFC value 0.622 by scientists to support its use in treatment of mumps out of 23 plants reported by traditional healers.
Conclusion:
This survey expresses the knowledge about medicinal plants used in the treatment of mumps in north India, and it serves as a template for researchers to conduct future research on these plants for mumps treatment.
Introduction
The vast majority of people in the world use medicinal plants for treatment of various diseases since ages.1–3 Mumps is a keen systemic disease caused by virus with well-known symptoms and complications with usual benign course. In developed countries, the use of an effective vaccine has successfully reduced mumps virus (MuV) infection, despite the fact that outbreaks are still common.4–6 Owing to lack of efficient vaccination programs, mumps is still regarded as a major viral illness in various developing countries. In India, the burden of mumps disease is still not completely understood. Published data reports indicate that the prevalence of disease is more in children between the age group of 5 and 9 years.7,8
The disease usually spreads with the transmission of virus (MuV) either by direct person contact with infected person or through inhalation. The MuV is a member of the Rubula virus genus and belongs to the Paramyxoviridae family. It is an enveloped RNA virus with a 15.3 kb antisense genome that is single stranded and nonsegmented. 9 Mumps is considered as a “harmless” communicable disease but sometimes it may cause diverse complications, that is, renal involvement in addition to parotitis, orchitis, pancreatitis, meningo encephalitis, and myocarditis.10,11
But the most common sign of mumps is the painful enlargement of the parotid salivary glands, which occurs in 30–40% of patients.12,13 In the unvaccinated population, an estimated 30–70% infected persons are usually associated with typical acute parotitis and ∼20% are those who never show symptoms. An ethnobotanist explores and reflects the relationship between a given society and its environment, in particular, the plant world. For the preservation of the traditional knowledge, documentations of traditional ethnopharmacological know-hows are necessary as these documentations may create interest or curiosity among the professional pharmacologists for the search of new drugs and may also motivate ethnobiologists to study the huge cultural diversity of India.
Owing to resurgence of MuV and reports of infection, this survey was created to identify the plants utilized by tradomedical practitioners and to bring them to the attention of researchers and scientists so that clinical investigations on the plant's beneficial therapeutic effects and pharmacological actions can be pursued.
There are a number of herbal drugs used in India for the treatment of mumps as home remedies. To the best of our knowledge, no previous research has addressed this topic in India's northern regions. The additional information gained from this study could lead to more research studies to aim at exploring more about the plants, ensuring the long-term viability of traditional herbal medicine in the study area, and preserving plant diversity.
Methodology
The main aim of the study was to highlight the natural alternatives that people in India's northern states use to treat mumps based on their own personal experience. A field survey was conducted in and around district headquarters of Uttar Pradesh (Agra, Moradabad, Meerut, and Mathura), Himachal Pradesh (Dharamshala, Kangra, Shimla, Mandi, and Kullu & Manali), Punjab (Barnala, Sangrur, Ludhiana, Bhatinda, Patiala, Faridkot, and Ferozepur), Uttrakhand (Haridwar, Dehradun, Rudraprayag, and Pauri Garhwal), and Union Territories of Chandigarh.
During the study (December 2018 and November 2021), a number of periodical wide-ranging surveys were conducted, and the information related to ethnomedicinal uses of the plants that are used in treatment of mumps was collected from the 48 tribal physicians (vaidyas), 36 tribal head men (Mukhia), 8 old traditional healer ladies, and 6 aged traditional tribals. The collected data were examined using descriptive statistics such as percentages, frequency of citation (FC), and relative frequency of citation (RFC) to determine the knowledge of medicinal plants used for the treatment of mumps in the study area.
The relative frequency of citation, also known as the FC, represents the importance of each plant species in the local area and is calculated by dividing the number of informants, or individuals who mention the use of the plant species, by the number of informants who are participating in the survey study (N).14–16
The medicinal properties of these plants were also recorded from Indian medicinal standard literature as well as folklore claims. A concerted effort has been undertaken to emphasize the traditional uses of these plants to enable the researchers to investigate them further for clinical studies.
Results and Discussion
It was important to ascertain the educational qualification and years of experience in dispensing traditional medicines to patients, hence demographic data were collected. Table 1 displays the sociodemographic profile of the interviewers/traditional healers. There were 86 men (87.75%) and 12 women among the 98 participants interviewed (12.24%). All of them practiced use of medicinal plants for the treatment of mumps and their age ranges between 21 and 89 years. The interviewers were randomly divided into four major age groups: 20–40, 40–60, 60–80, and >80 years old (respectively, 7, 78, 10, and 3 persons).
For their educational level, only 4.08% attended up to atleast primary school. From the data, it is very clear that the majority of the traditional healers included in the study were between ages of 40 and 80 years and had good experience in practicing traditional medicine. It is also important to note that 87.75% had university level of education. The findings also suggest that only a small percentage of participants were aware of literature and research to look for their information. Their main source of information was traditional health practitioners' experiences.
In our study, source of information obtained is from tribal physicians (48.97%), tribal head man (36.73%), old ladies (8.16%), and aged tribals (6.12%). The main reasons for using medicinal plants in all interviewed persons were that medicinal plants were effective, which was confirmed by their several uses in addition to their ease of use, cost effectiveness, and lack of adverse effects.
A total of 23 medicinal plants from 16 different families were discovered. The plants were scheduled in alphabetical order as per their families (Table 2). For 23 medicinal plants, information such as the common name, botanical name, citation, frequency of citations (RFC), plant parts used, and their therapeutic uses based on literature is provided. The frequency of citations (RFC) values of collected plant species ranges from 0.051 to 0.877. The most commonly utilized plant for the treatment of mumps is Glycyrrhiza glabra. The commonly used plants and their RFC values are G. glabra (0.877), Curcuma longa (0.867), Mimosa pudica (0.622), and Cinchona officinalis (0.469).
✔ = present; X = absent.
FC, frequency of citation; RFC, relative frequency of citation.
However, medicinal plant species with high RFC value should be further investigated for its phytochemical as well as pharmacological components, to identify the chemically active compounds for future drug development. It has been observed that out of 23 plants reported by traditional healers, only M. pudica plant was clinically approved that inhibits MuV at the concentration of 150 μg/mL completely and the drug was proven to be safe up to 2 mg/mL. 17 Out of the 23 plants, only 1 plant has undergone limited clinical study. Hence, the a need of the hour is to explore other remaining plants for further trials.
Conclusions
India has wealth of knowledge of ethnobotanicals, which has been transferred from generation to generation. The current investigation also discovered that the tribal populations residing in the same location have their own traditional ethnobotanical expertise. This survey is the first study that explicitly highlights the knowledge of medicinal plants that are used in north India for the treatment of mumps. The interviewers expressed self-confidence as well as faith while discussing the usage of these medicinal plants as a first preference for the treatment and were found quite satisfied. About 23 plants were inventoried and their complete information was thoroughly recorded. The array of medicinal plants used in mumps treatment clearly demonstrates the relevance of plants in the health care system.
However, there is a lack of clinical trials that would be extremely beneficial in highlighting the actual therapeutic potentials of these plants in treatment of mumps. As a result, this survey serves as a model for research scholars to further screen these plants for treatment of mumps.
Authors' Contributions
V.G. and G.K. suggested the idea and designed and wrote the first draft. G.K., A.N., R.S., and V.G. conducted the survey. P.B. and R.S. reviewed and approved the idea and designed and reviewed the article critically. All authors approved the final article for publication.
Footnotes
Acknowledgments
The authors thank all traditional healers for their contribution, time, and help in this study.
Author Disclosure Statement
No competing financial interests exist.
Funding Information
No funding was received for this article.