A literary review of single drug White Zedoary (Curcuma zedoria) commonly used in indigenous medicine

Abstract

White zedoary (Curcuma zedoria) is a medicinal plant being used by indigenous practitioner for various ailments throughout the world particularly, by Unani medical practitioners in South East Asia. (Dymock and Hooper, 1976, Sahid Zillur Rahman, 1972) Curcuma zedoria in Urdu term 'Zarambad' is useful in cardiac ailments, anxiety, mental confusion, pelvic pain, sciatic pain, liver disorders and epilepsy. An aqueous extract of the drugs possesses central depressant, anti-anxiety, liver tonic, skeletal muscle relaxant effect, anti hyperlipidaemia, hypolipoproteinaemic, anti-oxidant and anti-coagulant properties. It can be used for hypertension, dyslipidaemia and obesity. Zedoary is commonly used as a medicine in China and Japan; In Thailand and India, the fresh rhizomesare might be used in the preparation of curry paste. For the search of the ancient and the recent Unani literature author visited several libraries, including library of the Ajmal Khan Tibbia College and Hospital, Maulana Azad library of Aligarh Muslim University, library of the Nizamiya Tibbia College and Hospital, Hyderabad, India. The databases utilized information from journals indexed/available through Google Scholar, Scopus, PubMed and Science Direct. Relevant facts were also obtained from general databases such as Google. It is evident that these medicinal plants are widely used by the different traditional medical practitioners for curing various diseases in their everyday practice. In this article author focuses on the medicinal action and use of Curcuma zedoria in the Unani system of medicine.