Evaluation of Antioxidant Activity of Stephania Japonica and Mikania Cordata

Abstract

The study of disease and their treatment have existed since the beginning of human civilization. Fossil records date human use of plants as medicines at least to the Middle Paleolithic age some 60,000 years ago (Solecki R. et al., 1975). From that point of traditional medicine systems incorporating plants as a means of therapy can be traced back only as far as recorded documents of their likeness. However the value of these systems is much more than a significant anthropologic or archeologic fact. Their value is as a methodology of medicinal agents, which according to the World Health Organization (WHO), almost 65% of the world’s population have incorporated into their primary modality of health care (Farnsworth NR. et al., 1985). Since the ancient times, in search for rescue for their disease, the people looked for drugs in nature. The beginnings of the medicinal plants’ use were instinctive, as is the case with animals (Stojanoski N., 1999). In view of the fact that at the time there was not sufficient information either concerning the reasons for the illnesses or concerning which plant and how it could be utilized as a cure, everything was based on experience. Norman R. Farnsworth of the University of Illinois declared that, for every disease that affect mankind there is a treatment and cure occurring naturally on the earth. Plant