Indian Journal Of Natural Sciences www.tnsroindia.org. © IJONS Vol.6 / Issue 33 / December 2015 International Bimonthly ISSN: 0976 – 0997 RESEARCH ARTICLE Traditional Healthcare Practice for Common Ailments of Children in Pudukkottai District, TamilNadu – A survey Sambath G1, Komalavalli N2* and Ravikumar R3 1Block Resource Teacher, Block Resource Centre, Thiruvadanai -623407, Ramanathapuram, Tamil Nadu, India. 2Associate Professor, PG and Research Department of Botany, Alagappa Govt. Arts College, Karaikudi – 620 020. 3Assistant Professor, PG and Research Department of Botany, Jamal Mohamed College (Autonomous), Tiruchirappalli – 620 020, Tamil Nadu, India. Received: 28 Sep 2015 Revised: 24 Oct 2015 Accepted: 28 Nov 2015 *Address for correspondence Komalavalli N Associate Professor PG and Research Department of Botany, Alagappa Govt. Arts College, Karaikudi – 620 020, Tamil Nadu, India. Email:
[email protected] This is an Open Access Journal / article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. All rights reserved. ABSTRACT The present study deals with the herbal remedies used for curing common day-to-day ailments of children. The information is based on real experiences of the common rural people including 26 rural women elders, 13 rural men elders, 13 herbalist and 13 traditional healers with a total of 65 informants aged between 30 - 85 years living in and around 13 development blocks namely Alangudi, Aranthangi, Arimalam, Avadaiyarkoil, Gandarvakottai, Karambakkudi, Kottaipattinam, Kulathur, Illuppur, Manamelkudi, Ponnamaravathy, Pudukkottai and Thirumayam of Pudukkottai district. The study reveals that a total of 97 plants belonging to 55families have been successfully used as a promising remedy for curing various ailments of children.