Abstract

Background: The traditional medicinal systems of Indian folklore abundantly use medicinal plants for the treatment of snakebite. However, this tradition is on the verge of extinction and there is an immediate necessity to conserve this oral traditional knowledge primarily by proper documentation and avail it to scientific world for authentication. The present ethnobotanical study carried out among the folk medicine practitioners in the rural settlement areas of Kallar forest region of southern Kerala, a part of south Western Ghats endowed with rich cultural and biological diversity, aims to document the folk herbal knowledge particularly for snake envenomation.
Methods: The survey was conducted during the period of June 2012 to July 2013 in the rural and forest settlement areas of Kallar in the Thiruvananthapuram district of Kerala. Direct observation and oral communications with local folk medicine practitioners in this region were adopted to collect valid information regarding the herbal formulations used to treat snake bite patients.
Results: The study enumerates a list of 24 plant species belonging to seventeen families with antivenomous potential. Information on the plant part used for the envenomation is also presented along with its details.
Conclusions: Plants are believed to be potent snake bite antidotes from centuries back and knowledge about the use of plants is strictly conserved through generations without recorded data. It is the need of the hour to document these old drug formulations and is the cardinal responsibility of the scientific community is to validate it and come up with new potent snake bite drug molecule for the benefit of snake bite victims.

Key words: snake antidote, south Western Ghats, ethnomedicine, folk tradition, medicinal plants