Efficacy of Earthworm Against Rheumatic Fever

Abstract

Rheumatic fever is a chronic lethal disease which affects human at the age of 5-22 years. The disease if not managed properly in time it provokes heart diseases or valvular heart diseases after 10-15 years. There is no specific or selected therapy for the treatment or management of Rheumatic fever. Earthworms had been used as the potential source of medicine for treatment of many diseases related to Rheumatic fever effectively from ancient time. Accordingly, it was thought that earthworm tissue might contain certain effective medicinal compounds to cure Rheumatic fever and investigations were performed in vitro (Laboratory test) and in vivo (clinically). First of all, earthworm's extract was obtained from dry powder of one of the most common indigenous species by using successively ten different solvents through continuous hot percolation process for extraction. Diethyl ether, chloroform, methanol, ethanol, propanol, butanol, acetic acid, acetone, xylol and morpholine extracted out 2.89±1.23, 3.32±1.36, 16.25±3.15, 4.62±1.73, 0.86±0.29, 0.93±0.36, 1.15±0.49, 1.09±0.46, 0. 76±0.38, and 0.80±0.18 in percent by weight (mg) of the dry powder of earthworm tissue.