Antidiarrhoeal Activity of the Ethyl Acetate Extract of Baphia Nitida (Papilionaceae)

In our search for plants useful in the treatment of diarrhoea, we investigated the ethyl acetate extract of Baphia nitida (BN) using intestinal transit (1,2), enteropooling (3) and gastric emptying (4) tests. In the normal intestinal transit test, peristaltic index (PI %) for the control group (distilled water 10ml/kg, p.o.) was obtained to be 83.64±4.07. BN produced a non-significant increase in intestinal propulsion with PI values of 84.37±1.72, 88.22±2.71 and 91.80±2.33 for doses of 100, 200 and 400mg/kg (p.o.), respectively. The extract effected a significant ( P