2009 © Doel D.Soejarto
Dating back to ca. 1400 CE, information about the uses of medicinal plants has been written in various languages, including old Lao and Pali, a language of sacred Buddhist texts, using leaves from the palmyra palm (Borassus flabellifer L., Arcaceae) as the recording medium. Several thousand bundles of Lao palm leaf manuscripts, as well as microfilm containing over 50,000 palm leaf manuscript fascicles, are deposited at the National Library of Laos (Vientiane). Using documents such as those illustrated on the cover of this issue, Soejarto and co-workers deduced which plants have been used in Laos for the treatment of tuberculosis. Interviews were then conducted with contemporary healers to determine modern day usage, and these plants were collected and evaluated for anti-tuberculosis activity. For a full description, see the manuscript entitled “Biological Evaluation of Plants of Laos Used in the Treatment of Tuberculosis in Lao Traditional Medicine” by Elkington et al. in this issue. The cover photograph was supplied through the courtesy of the authors and published with the permission of the Traditional Medicine Research Center, Ministry of Health, Vientiane, Laos.