In a unique attempt to educate the masses about the house hold ayurvedic solutions to health problems ranging from simple cold and cough to the severe cases like chronic asthma and jaundice, a three-day exhibition of medicinal herbs opened in the city at Ayurveda Rasashala on Karve Road today.

Total 500 plants and herbs including dry varieties having medicinal values are on display at the exhibition organised for the common citizens by Kolhapur Harichand Mehta Public Charitable Trust.

The highlighting factor of the exhibition is that all the medicinal plants and herbs displayed are either commonly used by the people in their daily meals or consumption as vegetables, fruits and even spices or are available in abundance growing as unwanted vegetation near the human inhabitations.

Says Dinesh Mehta, trustee of Harichand Mehta Public Charitable Trust which has been organising similar exhibitions since 1975 in various parts of Maharashtra, ``The main idea behind holding such exhibition is to educate the common people about medicinal uses of plants and herbs which they use as a part of their daily consumption.''

Mostly the people are not even aware that most of the ailments can be treated by the medicinal herbs available at home, he adds. Mehta's view is aptly reflected at the exhibition which is divided into various sections like plants, vegetables, fruits, dry herbs cereals and spices with detailed information regarding its medicinal uses provided alongside each display.

Then be it anti-worms action of snakegourd, the digestive property of tamarind, the radish juice useful in curing cholera or use of rock salt for treating lethal Malarial cases.

The anxiety among the Puneites to know about the medicinal wonders of some their household items could be gleaned from the large number in which they turned out to visit the exhibition. The visitors were drawn from the cross-section of the society and from all age groups. Prominent among these were ladies who evinced keen interest particularly in the vegetable, fruits and spices section. Also the medical students from both allopathy and ayurveda streams turned up in large numbers in the exhibition which concludes on April 26.

``The problem we are facing is that as per the present education system the botanists can identify the plants but they do not know their medicinal uses mentioned in details in ayurveda and vice versa for the Vaidya's. Thus such an exhibition provides an opportunity to both to improve their knowledge base,'' says Dinesh Mehta.