Significance of Aromatic Plants In the Field Of Medicine

About the Study

Aromatic plants have traditionally been combined with medical plants, as the majority of aromatic plants have therapeutic applications in addition to other uses. Aromatic plants have long been utilized in perfumery and cosmetics due to the strong aroma they generate, which is related to the presence of essential oils, which are a phytoconstituent of these plants. Because of these features, aromatic plants are very important in commerce and trade and ongoing scientific research has opened up new paths in aromatic plant research. The most important application of aromatic plants is still in the pharmaceutical industry, which is constantly looking for new effective medication compounds at a time when antibiotic resistance is on the rise. Aromatic plants are widely used in traditional medical systems such as Ayurveda (India), an ancient Chinese medical system and a variety of other traditional medical systems. Aromatherapy is a natural medicine alternative therapy that depends only on aromatic herbs and essential oils for treatment. Essential oils have been utilized to improve a person's health or behavior since the beginning of time.

Aromatherapy is defined as the therapeutic application or medical use of aromatic compounds (essential oils) for holistic healing by the National Association for Holistic Aromatherapy (NAHA). Massage, topical treatments and inhalation are all examples of aromatherapy applications. However, we must remember that natural materials are still chemicals and their improper usage can be hazardous. The general classification is also more practicable under the category of medicinal and aromatic plants, because aromatic plants have been grouped with medicinal plants for identification and taxonomy purposes. The first stage in studying and using MAPs is to identify the plants and then classify them according to their taxonomic categorization. In the lack of any scientific precedent, plant identification was previously primarily relied on the senses of vision, olfaction, and touch, hence the fundamental basis for classification of aromatic plants was their exterior morphology. With the advancement of science and the discovery of a large number of plants with similar morphologies, it became more difficult to classify them morphologically and it pushed for the need for a more standard classification system that could accommodate new species discovered in the future. As a result, classification systems began to use other characters such as chemical traits such as phytochemical profiling, DNA markers, biosynthetic causes of chemo-differentiation and now genetic markers. As a result, botany, aided by other scientific advances, appears to provide significant prospects for the development of novel, very potent chemo-cultivars of medicinal and aromatic taxa. Only a few hundred species of aromatic plants have been examined in depth, out of a total of roughly 1500 species. Of the 50 species used as a commercial source of essential oils and aroma chemicals, only a few dozen are used on a regular and large-scale basis. It is impossible to know the actual number of aromatic plant species or MAP materials in use in the world. This is due to the fact that, for starters, some aromatic and medicinal plant material is utilized in little amounts and hence will not be mentioned in a trader's catalogue. Second, an aromatic or MAP commodity may come from a variety of species but be offered under a trade name that hides the sources. Finally, many species are used only at a local level and their use is not well recorded.