ABSTRACT
Plants have been used in the treatment of cancer for over 3500 years (Hartwell, 1967). But it is only since 1959 that a concentrated systematic effort has been made to screen crude plant extracts for their inhibitory activity against tumour systems. Under the programme sponsored by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), USA, around 200,000 plant extracts from 2500 genera of plants have been screened (Cordell, 1977).
