Ethnobotanical Study on the utilized of medicinal plants by the Phouthai Ethnic Group in Khammouan Province, Lao PDR

Introduction

Plants have been a part of the rural area’s people’s lives since pre¬historic time, and is evolving into an essential traditional cultures worldwide where native peoples used it from birth to death [1-3]. Different kinds of plant species are rare and precious medical re¬sources and environmentally friendly building materials [4]. Gen¬erally speaking, they could be used to treat illness and disease, health tonic, and are important in primary healthcare around the world [5]. Especially in rural area far away from the hospital. Even though in developed countries such as Australia, Canada, France, Belgium, America, a high percentage of the population also treat¬ed plants as traditional medicines [6-8]. Since modern medicines were dissolved or synthesized the basic on of previous plant deriv¬atives, and the extraction of bioactive compounds from plants as plant derivatives always took a lot of time, expertise and money, the search for traditional medicinal plants can help reduce the cost of drug discovery [9, 10]. At the same time, traditional knowledge was being eroded by several processes related to globalization and urbanization [11-13]. Because people in each region of the world had different historical backgrounds, cultures and ways of life, and the flora of their environment is different, they used plants as medicines in different patterns, such as different plant species with different plant parts, preparation methods and applications in medicine [14-16].

Although some mode preparations can use any or all parts of the plant, most medicinal plants are usually strictly related to specific parts of the plant, such as roots, stems, leaves [17-21]. Screening of plant parts usually depends on the organ with the highest con-centration of bioactive substances acting in the treatment [1, 11, 13, 22-24]. But since not all traditional medicines rely on physio-logical effects, other parts can also be used. The preparation of this drug was inherited from the traditional culture and it can be done using various solvents, such as boiling, soaking in water or alcohol [1, 13]. Crushing without extraction, and ingesting without any preparation. The medicine can be used as a drink, tablet or without any preparation. Finally, the way of administration varies from in-gestion to smoke inhalation to external application to the injured area of the body [1, 19, 25-27]. All these differences can be due to the different cultural, geographical and temporal dimensions.

The rural population relies almost entirely on traditional medi¬cine for primary health care and is highly dependent on medicinal plants due to the lack of modern health services.

Although many of number medicinal plants have been known and used by the local community, no one has recorded their knowledge until now. Tra¬ditional healers usually pass on medicinal knowledge to the next generation through oral language [27-29]. In this way, some cru¬cial of key information would be misunderstood or missed. In ad¬dition, there is a lack of sufficient reference knowledge on the use of ethnic medicinal plants among the frequently cited problems in research [14]. Therefore, the current study is urgently needed and carried out mainly from these aspects. Firstly, how many kinds of medicinal plants there are in the Hinboun area of Khammaun Province of the Laos? Secondly, what is the specific function of the medicinal plant and how to use it?

Materials and Methods

Description of the Study Area

The study was conducted in the Phouthai communities at Nakeu village Khammaun province, Laos ‘’Figture. 1’’. It is located 33 km far away from the town, the geographically situated between 17°64' –86°78' N and 140°78'–48°57' E, the total land area of 35,863 ha. The mean monthly temperature is 32 °C, ranging from 15 °C to 38 °C, and total rainfall is 1200 mm, ranging from 600 to 1600 mm and mostly of forested mountainous terrain.

Figure 1: Location of the study sites in Nakeu village Hinboon District, Khammouan Province.

Fieldwork

Ethnobotanical survey was conducted from June 2018. Prior ac-quisition of necessary ethics approval and informed consents were acquired before the actual interview. The consultation meetings and discussions were conducted together with the District of Ag-riculture and Forestry of Office (DAFO), and village leaders. The field collection and direct observation between August 2018 to July 2019 to generate a list of medicinal plants that local people gather around thier village. One hundred and fifty key informa- tion (81 males and 69 females, aged rang 28-44, 45-61, and 62-78 years (Table. 1). Ethnomedicinal data were collected through semi-structured interviews with key informants [22, 23]. We were asked them to shown plant specimens and photographs, and were asked for plant names (local name), part used, and modes of prepa¬ration, mildew treatment, habits and other information were re¬corded. In addition, three focus group discussions were conducted with ten older people with traditional knowledge (male, and fe¬male).

Table 1: The information of the key informant

Collection and Identification

Veritable species identification of medicinal plants was conducted during field walk with the assistance of the guide from DAFO and traditional healer from village for the record of the local names. And then was literature available in our University and internet resources, take into consideration present Lao plant checklists [24] [30] All botany names were checked for spelling and synonyms, and family classification using the word flora online (http://www. worldfloraonline.org), https://padme.rbge.org.uk/laos/list/.

Data Analysis

Use Value (UV) The relative significance was calculated employing the UV [31] a quantitative measure for the relative significance of species known locally.

Where Un is the use numbers of plants by each informant for a given species while N is the total number of informants. The UV are high when there are many use reports for a plant, mean that a plant is significance, and approach zero when there are a few reports related to its use.

Statistical Analyses

Statistical tests were performed to test difference between the knowledge of different age groups. The numbers of medicinal plants known by informant and continuously variable of in-formant age were analyzed using linear regression. The using report of medicinal plants between males and females were compared using Chi-square statistics, t-test and analyzed of p-value [26].

Results

Medicinal Plants Species A total of 79 medicinal plant species belong to 46 families (Ta¬ble 2). The commonly used families were Fabaceae 10.12% (8 species), Euphorbiaceae 7.59% (6 species), Annonaceae, Apocynaceae, Moraceae, Ohyllanhaceae, Rubiaceae, and Ruta-ceae 3.79% (3 species in each), and Araliaceae, Bignonaceae, Combretaceae, Dillenniaceae, Lamiaceae, Lauraceae, Meni-spermaceae, Poaceae, and Simaroubaceae 2.53% (2 species), see in the ‘’Figure. 2’’. The distinctive plant parts used in prepa¬rations both in single and multiple treatments are: roots 29 species (33%), stems 27 species (31%), leaf 13 species (15%), fruits 8 species (9%), whole plants 6 species (7%), and barks 5 species (5%) see in the ‘’Figure. 3’’. which are medicinal used for stomach problem, heart disease, kidney problem, and fever, respectively, based on the frequency of informant citation see in the ‘’Figure. 2’’

Figure 2: Disease category treated by different medicinal plant species in Hinboun district, Khammouan province

                                                             TABLE 2

Use Value

The UV were high for plants with many use reports. Largely used medicinal plants included such as Ocimum americanum (0.93), Cyathostemma micramthum (0.79), Dillenia pentagyna (0.60), Chromolaena odorata (0.57), Aegle marmelos and Xylia xylocar- pa (0.45), Tinospora crispa (0.44), Phyllanthus emblica (0.37), Aloe vera (0.30), Sesbania grandiflora and Haldina cordifolia (0.29), Croton lachnocarpus and Tamarindus indicus (0.27) etc. ‘’Show detail in table 2 and Figure. 3’

Figure 3: Selected medicinal plants its high used value: (A), Ocimum americanum, (B), Chromolaena odorata, (C), Dillenia pentagyna, (D), Tinospora crispa, (E), Sesbania grandiflora, (F), Aegle marmelos, (G), Xylia xylocarpa, (H), Tamarindus indicus, (I), Phyllanthus emblica.

Medicinal Plant Knowledge

This study we found no difference in knowledge of medicinal plant between the male and female. The age basis, the youngest age group knew more medicinal plants (average 14.09 species) than did the middle age group (average 7.59 species). The old¬est group knew the fewest (average 4.51 species). This study we found a relationship between age and number of medicinal plants know by Phouthai people, medicinal plants used increases with age. The younger people use more medicinal plants than older. Moreover, the linear regression between number of plants know by informants and informant age showed a significant positive re¬lationship (R2=0.0257, F (1.129) =20.66, P < 0.001). Comparing the knowledge of medicinal plants between male (81) and female (69) by Chi-square statistics, t-test and analysis of variance, we found no differences in knowledge of the plants between gender.

Indigenous knowledge for preservation and storage medicinal plants

The traditional healers and villagers usually collected the medic-inal plants from different fields, such as in the forest, farmland, in and around their community. Plant parts used were dry and crouched before storing in bags or bottles. It’s very difficult for pa- tients to recognize plant species that are used for treatment, which sometimes seem like ordinary plants that were growing in gardens or in the forest. Almost traditional healers and villagers prefer to stored medicinal plants in dry or powdered form inside bottles or plastic bags to reduce the field collection trips and make sure the availability of plant parts is possible throughout the year.

Indigenous knowledge on processing and using medicinal plants The primary mode of preparation of plant extracts was boiling fol¬low by soaking, and crushing (Table 3). Boiling were commonly used (68%), was prepared by boiling plant parts in a specific quan¬tity of water for fifteen minutes and then mixture allowed to warm/ cool before administration, followed by soaking with water (11%) that pouring down cool/warm water onto plant parts for one or two days and allowed the mixture. Soaking with alcohol (8%) in¬volved pouring alcohol onto plant materials and allowed the mix¬ture. Crushing was used (7%) of the plant species. Most, involved crushing plant materials of a single or combination of more than one part from different species to extract a liquid which was ap¬plying either topically. The mode preparation like powdering, raw eating, and rubbing was used with low frequency in the range of 6% of the plant species.

Table 3: Mode of preparation plant parts used of identified species for treatments in and around Hinboun District Khammouan Province Lao P.D.R.

Discussion

The Phouthai people are a social group with characteristic culture transmitted from their antecedents. In their livelihood are interde-pendence between humans and naturals. Indigenous and knowl-edge become their identity. The lifestyle is combined base on tra-ditional plant knowledge, belief’s and exerting and error practices of the in and around communities which are passed on from parent to generation. Nowadays, indigenous plant knowledge is being in¬creasing, this knowledge not only needs to be preserved in their communities but also need to documented [32]. Even more, some plants are used as important medicine and to make income for peo¬ple in the communities. The highest number of medicinal plant species documented, and indicated that the study area has diverse tree used for treatment of disease. The number of medicinal plants documented was less than that of the studies reported elsewhere in Laos [33, 34]. But higher than H. J. DE Boer’s study [35]. The plants were most frequently used for the treatment of the disease such as stomach problems, nervous system, kidney infection, liv- er tonic, and postpartum tonic, which are consistent with other studies [36-38]. Moreover, the considerable number of tradition¬al medicines were from roots, and this is because that roots were available throughout the year, and traditionally considered to be strong medicine with good smell and drinking easily [1, 3, 11, 39]. However, using of stems instead of roots, have been advocated by most ethnobotanical studies, as using roots highly affects the ex¬istence of medicinal plant species, as well as roots were not easily accessible and not sustainable [1, 17, 40, 39]. The most common mode of preparation was boiling. This result is consistent with the finding of [38, 33, 14, 12, 11]. Who documented that the principal mode of medicine preparation was through boiling. As other stud¬ies showed that most medicines was preparing from a mixture or combined plant materials, we also found this [41, 3, 42].

The medicines preparation modes of dominant treatments varied from diseases such as skin diseases preparing by smoke, crashing and burning, and most of the medicines prescribed were by tradi- tional healers orally as they were easy to apply for human disease. In addition, some solvents such as water and alcohol were com¬monly believed to serve as the vehicle to transport the medicines, which is compatible with some other studies in Laos elsewhere and other tropical countries [12, 29, 43]. Villagers and healers know how to use medicinal plants mainly to treat common diseas¬es, including stomachaches, fever, and wounds.

Conclusion

In Hinboun district, Khammuoan province, Lao PDR, it was found that the total of 79 plant species were used for traditional medicine and documented as use in the treatment of different common sick¬nesses, including stomach problems (gastrointestinal, flatulence, diarrhea, detox), kidney infections, fever, dysmenorrheal postpar¬tum tonic, nervous system, skin disease, health tonic, lever infec¬tions, heart disease, dressing wounds, and others. Most majority of these traditional medicinal plants were trees, shrubs, liana, and gasses, mainly from the wild. In terms of the parts of the plant, roots and stems were most frequently used. Usually, medicinal plants were dried and used for preparation by boiling, soaking with cold water or alcohol, crushing.

The current study also highlighted that realization and cultural be¬liefs have a significant influence on the unique source of health¬care, in contrast, religion was found to have no association with health-seeking behavior. Beyond, the therapeutic use of the identi¬fied and documented plants will provide essential data for further researches focusing on pharmacological studies and the conser¬vation of the most important medicinal plants in the study area. Health policies have to promote the utilization of medicinal plants as part of a strategy to improve the basic health and livelihoods of rural communities throughout the country. Further exploration is needed on the bioactive compound and chemical factor contents of medicinal plants.

Acknowledgement

We would like very grateful to the teachers of the Department of Forest Community and Rural Development at the Faculty of For¬estry Science, the National University of Laos, for providing us with field materials, and their students to help us in collection data. We would also like to express our gratitude to the villagers and healers for their invaluable contribution to the study; to our inter¬preter, and thanks to all the staff in the department of forestry at Hinboun district for graciously granting us permission to conduct our study.

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