Plantas medicinais utilizadas pelos moradores dos assentamentos de Nova Conquista e Patativa do Assaré – Paraíba e fitoterápicos comercializados no município de Patos-PB.

Abstract

People use forest resources for certain purposes including: Food, leisure, housing and health. Studies on ethnobotany will understand the direct inter-relations between the community and the plants around them, ie their cultural conception of the use of the plant species. The plant resources used for medicinal purpose are common in different cultures and their therapy goes beyond cure of traditional diseases healing, it also affects the universe of cultural diseases that can be defined as: chipping (quebrante), fallen ark(arca caída), tooth strength (força de dente), back (encosto), spell (feitiço), breast-open (peito aberto), broken view (vista quebrada). Therefore the study aimed to know the use of plant in two settlements and the relationship between them and the economic activities, and if these happen in a rational way, contributing with the rescue and preservation of local culture, and to identify herbal sold in drugstores located in the city of Patos-PB. The work is divided into two chapters, where the first chapter has the discussion on conducting an ethnobotanical study of the species for medicinal purposes used by residents of two settlements in the state of Paraíba: Nova Conquista, in the county Condado and Patativa do Assaré, a municipality of Patos, recording the plants known by the locals, their uses and how to prepare. We identified 50 species in 32 families, to cure their diseases they use mostly the leaves in the preparation of tea. The second chapter takes discussion of which plant species are used for the production of herbal medicines sold in drugstores in the city of Patos-PB. 24 species in 19 ethnobotanical families were found. And all this results highlights and makes us alert to the risk of indiscriminate use of medicinal plants, as most of them are not subject to pharmaceutical legislation to guarantee the quality of the material. Many plants used in folk medicine have considered toxic substances and must be handled and used with utmost care.