Abstract:

An attempt has been made to document the indigenous methods of treatment followed by rural families for curing/treating common ailments among children. Data were generated from 300 rural families covering 60 villages of Bareilly district in Uttar Pradesh. A total of 124 indigenous practices were identified and documented under 27 different common ailments found among children. It was observed that 50% respondents were practicing as many as 4-6 different indigenous treatments followed by 42% respondents practicing 7-9 practices. Diarrhea followed by burn and cold was the most common ailment treated by 73, 62 and 60% respondents, respectively. More than 30% of the respondents had the local technical knowledge about fever, dysentery, vomiting, boils, measles, wounds, cough, conjunctivitis and worm infestations separately.