Traditional Medicine Practice amongst the Takkad People of Nigeria

Abstract

An ethnomedical survey was conducted from April to October 2006 for the first time of the uniquely ethno geographical tourist-relief region of the Takkad speaking community of Southern Kaduna-Nigeria. The study, which aimed at documenting and establishing resourceful information for both phytochemical and pharmacological studies of the surveyed plants against their ethnotherapuetic claims, yielded a total of 50 medicinal plants species represented by 47 genera from 30 botanical families. Plants habit/habitat of collection showed most of the plants as ubiquitously wild (74%) and herbaceous in nature (46%). Information on indigenous medicinal plant wealth was obtain using a tape recorder, supplemented by a structured and semi-structured questionnaire during the interview interactive session of the study with key people who are knowledgeable in Takkad Traditional Medicine. The idea of plant conservation was observe to be lacking, hence there is a serious threat of decimation and depletion of plants flora. Regional studies base on epidemiology revealed a record of 34 ailments, which were mention 69 times by the respondents as various therapeutic indications for the 50 plants surveyed. Most of the recipes involved a single plant with water and some local liquor as the common extractive solvent, while the mode of administration, dosage-regimens are grossly unregulated and unstructured. Generally, the families of Astaraceae, Leguminosae, Euphorbiaceae, Acanthaceae and Rubiaceae played a dominant role as plant medication. It was generally, concluded that information of this kind would be of benefit in general health care, ecological control, regional vegetation conservation and research into natural products—leading to drug discovery.

Keywords: takkad, epidemiology, therapeutic indication, recipes, ethnomedical survey.