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Elytraria acaulis is traditionally used in the treatment of diarrhoea. E. acaulis extracts were prepared in alcohol, water, hydroalcoholic solution, chloroform and ethyl acetate. Acute toxicity test was performed in albino mice and antidiarrhoeal activity was studied in Wistar rats. Castor oil- and magnesium sulphate-induced diarrhoea in Wistar rats were treated with E. acaulis extracts, standard antidiarrhoeal drug loperamide and the results were compared to control. Extracts of E. acaulis showed neither mortality nor any toxic effect in albino mice up to the dose of 5 g/kg during the period of 48 hours, which was further extended for 14 days. Water extract of E. acaulis was 60.68% (p<0.01) effective in reducing faeces in castor oil-induced diarrhoeal rats and 62.10% (p<0.01) in magnesium sulphate-induced diarrhoea model. These results indicated that E. acaulis extracts are effective for treatment of diarrhoea.
Keywords: Elytraria acaulis, Diarrhoea, Castor oil, Magnesium sulphate, Acute toxicity
INTRODUCTION
Diarrhoea is the frequent passing of loose, watery and unformed faeces. Loss of fluids through diarrhoea can cause dehydration and electrolyte imbalance. Herbal treatment for diarrhoea in natural and traditional medicinal practices includes the use of plants or plant extracts like Semicarpus anacardium, Achyranthus aspera, Rhus semialata (Alexander et al. 2011), Desmostachya bipinnata (Ahmad et al. 2010), Elytraria acaulis (Katewa and Jain 2006; Jain et al. 2005) etc.
E. acaulis is one of the plants belonging to Acanthaceae family, commonly known as nela marri (Sankaranarayanan et al. 2010), ho-muli (Kotwal and Srivastava 2013), kala gathia, galobi (Katewa and Jain 2006), sahamuria (Sikarwar et al. 2008), patharchattaa, dasmor and shat-muuli (Khare 2007). E. acaulis is traditionally used in treatment of abscess of mammary glands, boils, burns, colic, diarrhoea, rickets, throat compliments and tonsillitis (Jain et al. 2005). Leaves of E. acaulis are used to cure fever, venereal diseases (Khare 2007), kidney stone and urticaria (Katewa and Jain 2006). Roots of E. acaulis are claimed to have therapeutic benefits in treating stomach ache (Katewa and Jain 2006), tooth ache, asthma, expulsion of guinea worms (Katewa and Jain 2006; Jain et al. 2005), migraine (Katewa and Jain 2006), leucorrhoea, piles (Sikarwar et al. 2008), mammary tumours, pneumonia and infantile diarrhoea. The plant's infusion is prescribed as a remedy for cough (Khare 2007). Pyrazole alkaloids like withasomnine and 4?-hydroxywithasomnine...