ABSTRACT

In folk and traditional medicine in Bangladesh, Adenanthera pavonina L. has been used for the treatment of asthma, diarrhea, gout, inflammations, rheumatism, tumour, ulcers and as a tonic. In castor oil induced diarrhea model on rat, the methanol extract of A. pavonina bark has significantly reduced the cumulative wet fecal mass in the dose dependant protection. At the doses of 500 mg/kg body weight found 17.91% reduction and at 1000 mg/kg body weight found 34.32% reduction in comparison to the control. In acute toxicity study on mice, the LD50 value of the methanolic extract was found to be 1453.44 mg/kg. The elements N, P, K, S, Ca and Mg were found to be the highest amount of the powdered bark sample. The observed activities as well as mineral composition of the bark powder possesses pharmacological potential to develop natural compounds based pharmaceutical products and also justifies its use in traditional ayurve dic form of medicine.