European Journal of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences

EVALUATION OF 2-WEEKS TOXICITY OF AQUEOUS AND METHANOLIC EXTRACTS OF Artemisia herba alba (SHEEH) AERIAL PARTS ON WISTAR RATS

Shama I. Y. Adam*, Hala M. ELHussein, Wasma A. A. Ahmed and Warda S. Abdelgadir

ABSTRACT

The genus Artemisia has been used extensively in folk medicine by many cultures since ancient time (European medicine, North African and Arabic traditional medicine. Artemisia herba alba (locally known as Sheeh) is a herb wildly distributed in rural northern Sudan. It is considered a multipurpose medicinal plant and widely used in folk medicine for the treatment of many body ailments the most important of which are diabetes and malaria and as antimicrobial agent. The toxicity of two oral doses, 75 and 300mg/kg/day, of each of aqueous and methanolic extracts of A. herba alba aerial parts in Wistar rats for two weeks was evaluated. The results indicated that the extract was toxic exhibiting its effects by lowering body weight gain, and significant hematological and serobiochemical changes. These toxicity changes were highly correlated with dysfunction of vital organs namely, liver, kidney and intestines, no lesion were seen in other heart or spleen.

Keywords: Artemisia herba alba, aqueous and methanolic extracts, Wistar rats, toxicity.