International Journal of Ethnobiology & Ethnomedicine IJEE 19|VOLUME 1| ISSUE 1 1 Research Article ETHNOBIOLOGICAL AND TRADITIONAL MEDICINE PRACTICES IN BURDWAN DISTRICT, WEST BENGAL, INDIA Kausik Mondal, Arghya Paul & Salma Haque University of Kalyani, Kalyani, West Bengal, India- 741235 Correspondence should be addressed to Kausik Mondal Received 11 november. 2015; Accepted 20 november 2015; Published 07 december 2015 Copyright: © 2015 Kausik Mondal et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Cite This Article: Mondal,K., Paul, A., Haque, S. (2015). Ethnobiological and traditional medicine practices in burdwan district, west bengal, india, International journal of ethnobiology & ethnomedicine1(1).1-8 ABSTRACT A comprehensive study on documenting traditional medicinal practices was carried between January 2013 to December 2014 at Burdwan district, West Bengal, India. The most of the people of the district are tribal. The tibals are use those medicine which are mostly synthesize from natural things or plant sources. This medicine are called ethnomedicine. For most of the tribal communities, there is a little published data on ethnomedicinally important plants, so at first by the help of survey data was collected from different tribal and non-tribal community. Here, a total of 25 traditional medicine practices were describe for the treatment of 11 disease. The mode of preparation and administration of the herbal treatment varied widely. Leaf or root was the most frequently used plant part in the herbal medicine preparation. In future, this study will enrich the data bank of ethnobotany and incorporate new information about non-conventional uses of plant medicine. KEYWORDS: Ethnomedicine, Tribal, Medicinal knowledge, Burdwan district INTRODUCTION Plants have been used in traditional medicine for several thousand years. In different country accumulated different medicinal system based on their knowledge and culture. In India beside ayurveda, Siddha, and Unani medicine are very much accepted by most of the peoples [1]. This traditional knowledge of ayurvedic medicine is first written in 6 th century BC at the time of Sushruta and Charaka, named charaka samhita and sushruta samhita [2]. The Sushruta Samhita, contains more than hundred chapters and explain cause of more than thousand number of disease and 700 medicinal plants and their uses [3]. During the last few decades, there was an increasing in the study of medicinal plants and their traditional use in different parts of the world [4]. Those plants mainly make this medicine and animal resource which are easy to collect by those practitioner and this medicine is reliable and at least side effect. However, this traditional knowledge passed on orally generation-to- generation without any written document and still retained by various indigenous groups around the world known as fakir, Baidya, Santha, Ojha etc. They conserved this knowledge consciously because they thought if this knowledge is distributed to everyone they may lose their profession [5]. Ethnobotany is a study and relationship of people and plants. It is a complex relationship between cultures and use of plants on human societies in different way like as food, fooder, medicine, dye, cosmetics, textile, construction, clothing, and in social life [6]. The term ethnomedicine is a part of ethnobotany where plants related with medicine production are described. In 77 th A.D great Greek surgeon Pedanius Dioscorides was www.bmrjournals.com Open Access Scientific Publisher