HERBS of various kinds have been in use as medicines since times immemorial in Egypt, Greece, India, China, Britain and in some other European countries also.

Even today, these herbs are being utilised profitably and in sizable quantities in the preparation of various allopathic and homoeopathic medicines all over the world.

Generally speaking, these herbs are grown widely but many of them are also cultivated on larger scales, like any other traditional crop in various countries including America and Europe.

In Pakistan, various herbs are mostly grown in its northern region but unfortunately no serious effort has ever been made to study them scientifically for better and greater uses.

Some of these valuable herbs, no doubt, find there way in the export channel, at deplorably low prices. If their export was to be organized at a scientific level and their prices fixed keeping in view their uses, much more foreign exchange could be earned then what the country is earning today.

Various knowledgeable sources maintain that certain herbs considered as rare, are grown in India and Bangladesh also, in large quantities. In Pakistan, about 200 kinds of medicinal herbs are grown.

In view of the usefulness and the demand of medicinal herbs, domestically and internationally, there seems to be a great and urgent need to undertake a scientific study on the production, collection, utilization and marketing of these herbs. Some pioneering work is understood to have been initiated in this regard but that has to be updated and made more profitable for the country.

While carrying out any further research on the subject, the following points must be kept in mind:

* Treatment of various diseases and ailments in Egypt, India and China by various herbs has been in vogue for over thousands of years.

* Millions of people in Asia and Africa, even today, depend largely on these herbs,for improving their health or for curing them of various ailments.

* A large number of health institutes treating patients with various herbal medicines are already functioning in India.

* The proportion of herbs in making of various types of herbs in America is about 50 per cent.

* In recent times, the use of medicinal herbs in America has increased by 12 per cent.

* However, research on medicinal herbs in America and Europe has been almost nominal.

* A herb plant found in Madagascar has proved very effective in the treatment of the deadly disease of cancer.

* About 90 per cent patients of cancer have been said to have cured by the use of a herb plant known as, “Roziprivincal”.

* It has been found out through some modern laboratory test that some herbal plants have lost their efficacy.