Phytoconstituents and Biochemical Processes

The use of plants as medicines goes back to early man. Certainly the great civilisations of the ancient Chinese, Indians, and North Africans provided written evidence of man's ingenuity in utilising plants for the treatment of a wide variety of diseases. Plants contain some organic compounds which provide definite biochemical action against various diseases on the human body. The curative properties of drugs are due to the presence of complex chemical substances of varied composition (present as secondary plant metabolites) in one or more parts of these plants. Recently many drugs are invented from the plants against various incurable diseases. Based on this phytochemistry, the present volume has been compiled and aims at providing recent data on potential medicinal properties, action and uses of plants to contribute material in the development of new active compound from plants. The volume contributes 18 research and review communications from 40 eminent scientists from 12 countries n