World Health Organisation (WHO)

In many countries in the world, mainly in developing countries, the local flora is traditionally used to cure diseases. The concern of the WHO to give third world countries access to scientific knowledge about their plants and plant preparations. It put together a list of important plants in worldwide medical use and provided a compilation and evaluation of scientific findings for these plants. In the meantime, the acquired data has been published in the form of drug monographs for 89 plants or drugs. Like the monographs of the Commission E and ESCOP they contain information on ingredients, areas of use, pharmacology, toxicology, as well as side effects, contraindications and other warnings. Moreover, the appearance of the drug (macro-and microscopic) is described and requirements as to the quality are formulated. So far three volumes with a total of 89 monographs have been published. See further reading.