A Pharmacological Evaluation of Medicinal Plants used by Folk Medicinal Practitioners of Station Purbo Para Village of Jamalpur Sadar Upazila in Jamalpur district, Bangladesh

Abstract

An ethnomedicinal survey was carried out at Station Purbo Para village of Jamalpur Sadar sub-district in Jamalpur district of Bangladesh. Information on 121 medicinal plant species was obtained from the folk medicinal practitioners. All plants were screened in the scientific databases and scientific journals for pharmacological activities or presence of phytochemicals, which could be relevant to their folk medicinal uses. 61 plants (50.4%) of the total were found to have relevant pharmacological activities consistent with their uses. The actual number of relevant plants can increase further for a number of plants used by the folk medicinal practitioners are yet to be studied through relevant scientific experiments. The results suggest that the medicinal plants used by the folk medicinal practitioners of Bangladesh cannot be dismiised as irrelevant; in fact, the present study demonstrates that a substantial percentage of plants should be scientifically studied as soon as possible in a thorough manner for they can be sources of potentially important and efficacious drugs.