ANTIDIARRHOEAL AND ANTIBACTERIAL ACTIVITIES OF METHANOLIC EXTRACTS AND FRACTIONS OF THE PULP AND SEED OF ZIZIPHUS MAURITIANA (CHINEE APPLE)

ANTIDIARRHOEAL AND ANTIBACTERIAL ACTIVITIES OF METHANOLIC EXTRACTS AND FRACTIONS OF THE PULP AND SEED OF ZIZIPHUS MAURITIANA (CHINEE APPLE)

CHAPTER ONE

1.0 INTRODUCTION

1.1         Background of the Study

Since the beginning of human civilization, medicinal plants have been used for their therapeutic value. Nature has been a source of medicinal agents for thousands of years and an impressive number of modern drugs have been isolated from natural sources. Many of these isolations were based on the uses of the agents in traditional medicine. The plant-based, traditional medicine system continues to play an essential role in health care, with about 80% of the world‟s inhabitants relying mainly on traditional medicines for their primary health care (Shaikh and Hatcher, 2005).

According to the World Health Organization “a medicinal plant” is any plant, which in one or more of its organs contains substances that can be used for the therapeutic purposes or which, are precursors for the synthesis of useful drugs(WHO, 2001). This definition distinguishes those plants whose therapeutic properties and constituents have been established scientifically and plants that are regarded as medicinal but which have not yet been subjected to thorough investigation. The term “herbal drug” determines the part/parts of a plant (leaves, flowers, seeds, roots, barks, stems, etc.) used for preparing medicines (Anonymous, 2007). Furthermore, WHO defines medicinal plant as herbal preparations produced by subjecting plant materials to extraction, fractionation, purification, concentration or other physical or biological processes which may be produced for immediate consumption or as a basis for herbal products(WHO,2004). Medicinal plants are plants containing inherent active ingredients used to cure disease or relieve pain (Okigboet al., 2005).

The use of traditional medicines and medicinal plants in most developing countries as therapeutic agents for the maintenance of good health has been widely observed (UNESCO, 1998). Modern pharmacopoeia still contains at least 25% of drugs derived from plants and many others, which are synthetic analogues, built on prototype compounds isolated from plants. Interest in medicinal plants as a re-emerging health aid has been fuelled by the rising costs of prescription drugs in the maintenance of personal health and well-being and the bioprospecting of new plant-derived drugs. The growing recognition for medicinal plants use is due to several reasons, including escalating faith in herbal medicine (Kala, 2005). Furthermore, an increasing reliance on the use of medicinal plants in the industrialized societies has been traced to the extraction and development of drugs and chemotherapeutics from these plants as well as from traditionally used herbal remedies (UNESCO, 1998).

The medicinal properties of plants could be based on the antioxidant, antimicrobial, antipyretic effects of the phytochemicals in them (Ayodele, 2005). According to World Health Organization, medicinal plants would be the best source to obtain a variety of drugs. Therefore, such plants should be investigated to better understand their properties, safety and efficacy (Nascimentoet al., 2000).

ANTIDIARRHOEAL AND ANTIBACTERIAL ACTIVITIES OF METHANOLIC EXTRACTS AND FRACTIONS OF THE PULP AND SEED OF ZIZIPHUS MAURITIANA (CHINEE APPLE)