The gale of criticisms against trado-medical practitioners by Nigerians over the years now appears to be disregarded as government at all levels in the country have been called upon to establish necessary institutional and financial support to promote the role of herbal medicine in primary healthcare delivery.

The call was made at the weekend by Mr. Oluwafemi Bamidele Akinleye, a chief lecturer in the Biology/Microbiology Department and Dean, Students' Affairs, Federal Polytechnic, Ado-Ekiti, while delivering a lecture at the 10th Prof. E. K. Obiakor Lecture Series entitled "Plants And Their Products: Natural Wealth For a Better Economic And Primary Health Care Delivery in Nigeria".

Mr. Akinleye, who traced the history of herbal medicine, said traditional medicine was the most ancient method of curing diseases and it had been said that plants are the very first and only true medicines ever used (Gills 1920). This led to the establishment of the "Doctrine of Signature" and, according to him, "any plant that resembles the organ of human body is created for the cure of ailment of that part of the body." He said the traditional healing system in Nigeria was known by many names such as folk medicine, traditional medicine and herbal medicine. Mume (1973) coined a new term, trado-medicine, which is a system of treating diseases by the employment of agencies and forces of nature, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) (1996). He stated that "The traditional healer is a person recognised by the community in which he lives as competent to provide health care by using vegetable, animal and mineral substances and certain other methods based on socio-cultural and religious background as well as on knowledge, attributes and beliefs prevalent in the community regarding physical, mental and social well-being and causation of diseases and disability. "Furthermore, WHO (1977) defines medicinal plants as any plant which in one or more of its organs contains substances that can be used for therapeutic purposes or which are precursors for the synthesis of useful drugs. According to this definition, it is possible to distinguish between medicinal plants whose constituents and medicinal properties have been well established scientifically and plants are regarded as medicinal but which have not yet been subjected to thorough investigation. He disclosed that in many less developed countries like Nigeria, in order to make the traditional healing system more appealing to the society, traditional healers from time immemorial included rituals, magic, incantations, sacrifices, etc. in their method of treatment and now these rituals have become part and parcel of the traditional healing system.

For instance, Mr. Akinleye said during the early colonial era in Africa, there was a real encounter between indigenous African religions and their related healing system, and the more recent faiths like Christianity and Islam. As a result, he added that the indigenous systems were suppressed and the colonial masters even officially banned some of them. "The indigenous system was labeled primitive or savage. Due to all these constraints on indigenous African healing systems, most have not been put in print, hence they were kept in secrecy." While giving the definition of traditional medicine, Mr. Akinleye said it may be summarised as the totality of all knowledge and practice, whether explicable or not, used in diagnosing, preventing or eliminating a physical, mental or social disease and which may rely exclusively on past experience and observation handed down from generation to generation, verbally or in writing depending on the religion and socio-cultural beliefs (Gills 1992).

According to WHO (1976), "Traditional healers form the basic core of primary health care delivery in 90 per cent of rural populations in African countries. Some advantages of traditional healing system over modern medicine are: it is cheaper and easily accessible to a larger number of the population in rural areas of developing countries; a traditional healer belongs to the same culture as his patients, sharing common beliefs, value and symbols of communication," he stated.

Giving a global view about plants, he posited that human beings have been using plants for basic preventive and curative health care since time immemorial. According to him, "In 1991, estimates suggest that over 90,000 plants have known medicinal applications in various cultures and countries, and this is without having conducted comprehensive research among several indigenous and other communities (Farnsworth and Soejarto, 1991). "Medicinal plants are used at household level by women taking care of their families, at the village level by medicine men or tribal shamans and by the practitioners of classical traditional systems of medicine such as ayurveda (in India), Chinese medicine or the Japanese Kampo system.

According to WHO, over 80 per cent of the world's population or 4.3 billion people rely on such traditional plant-based systems of medicine to provide primary health care" (Bannerman et al, 1983).

He stated that the role of India cannot be underestimated in the effective use of herbal medicine with a submission that India is a country unrivaled in terms of diversity of medical systems and practices.