REVIEW ON TRADITIONAL ETHNO-VETERINARY MEDICINE AND MEDICINAL PLANTS USED BY INDIGENOUS PEOPLE IN ETHIOPIA: PRACTICE AND APPLICATION SYSTEM

Abstract

The objective of the review paper was to highlight indigenous practice to traditional veterinary medicine and medicinal plants used by indigenous people. Traditional medicine has been defined as the sum total of all knowledge and practices whether explicable or not, used in the diagnosis, prevention and elimination of physicals, mental or social imbalances which passes from generation to generation, whether verbally or in writing. The application of traditional medicine to veterinary medicine has been termed as ethnoveterinary medicine. In Ethiopia up to 80% of the population uses traditional medicine due to the cultural acceptability of healers and local pharmacopeias, the relatively low cost of traditional medicine and difficult access to modern health facilities. Some of medicinal plants were Monopsis Sellariodes, solanium anguivi Lam, Vigina spp, Nicotiana tabacum L, Argemone Mexicana L, and Platostoma Rotundifolium etc. and they useful for different diseases. Traditional practitioners include bone setters, birth attendants, tooth extractors, (called yetirs awolaki, 'Wogesha' and yelimd awalaj' respectively in Amharic) herbalists, as well as 'debtera', 'tenquay' (witch doctors), and spiritual healers such as 'weqaby' and 'kalicha'. Healing in Ethiopian traditional medicine is not only concerned with curing of diseases but also with the protection and promotion of human physical, spiritual, social, mental and material wellbeing. Drugs were administered using different routes, the main ones being, topical, oral and respiratory and are stored usually in containers such as bottles, papers, pieces of cloth, leaves and horns, and were kept anywhere at home.