Traditional medicines, especially the folk herbal medicines have recently been receiving heightened interest the world over. A less visible, but potentially more important application of recent advances in biosciences is the research and validation of herbal medicines used in experience based medicines, such as Chinese medicine and Indian Ayurveda. Ethnobotanical approaches to drug discovery which relies on using the knowledge of indigenous people, particularly healers are the oldest, but perhaps most successful techniques in discovering new pharmaceuticals from biodiversity.

This reference book contains 24 papers by eminent scientists on herbal drugs, drug discovery and other related topics which deal with biological activities and aspects of herbal drug research, such as anti-cancer, antidiabetic, anti-ischemic, anti-microbial, ethnomedicine, ethnopharmacology, pharmacognostic and phytochemistry. This book will be welcomed by many investigators working in the field of pharmacology, botany, biodiversity conservation, Ayurveda, traditional systems of medicine and drug discovery.