Ethnomedicinal Recipes for Respiratory and Bronchial Diseases from Tribals of Sriharikota Island, Andhra Pradesh

Sriharikota Island in Andhra Pradesh is an elliptical land mass sandwiched between Bay of Bengal in the East and Pulicat lake in the West. Sullurpet is the nearest railway station, which is 18 Km from Sriharikota Island and it is on Chennai-Kolkata trunk line and 90 Km away from North of Chennai. An aboriginal tribe called Yanadi dwells in Sriharikota. It is similar to Chenchu community elsewhere in Andhra Pradesh. In spite of the community being drifted from their natural way of life due to agro-rural development activities, a few aged tribals are still able to furnish traditional ethnomedicinal data. So far no ethno medico-botanical studies are conducted in this area except for list of 50 plants reported for general ailments/ diseases by Suryanarayana et al. (1989). Therefore a detailed study on ethno medico-botanical uses of the tribals of Sriharikota Island was undertaken for the duration three years (1996-1999). During this work about 280 species are collected having a variety of ethno medico-botanical/pharmaceutical values. However the article presents the 20 plant species only having remedial effect for respiratory and bronchial diseases. The study analyzes the habit and plant part(s) used for ethnomedicinal practices by the tribals of Sriharikota Island