Preliminary Phytochemical Screening, Analgesic and Anti-inflammatory Effects of the Hydroethanol and n-Hexane Leaf Extracts of Maytenus senegalensis Lam. Excell. (Celestraceae)

For long time, medicinal plants and other natural products have been used to treat varieties of diseases and as a result a number of modern drugs have been developed from them. Several families of plants have been used in ethnomedicine to treat various ailments in which Celestraceae is one. Maytenus senegalensis sample was collected from Takwashinge Village in Dass Local Government, Bauchi State, Nigeria. Soxhlet extraction method was adopted in this study. One thousand five hundred (1500) grams of the plant material was exhaustively extracted sequentially with n-hexane and 80% ethanol. The extractives were then subjected to phytochemical evaluation, analgesic and anti-inflammatory tests using Formalin-induced pain test and egg albumin-induced paw oedema in rats.The results of the phytochemical evaluation revealed the presence of cardiac glycosides, flavonoids, saponins, tannins and terpenoids; however, anthraquinones, alkaloids and phlobatannins were absent. The results of the analgesic effect of the crude ethanol extract, and n-hexane extract of the leaf of M. senegalensison formalin-induced pain in rats showed that the extracts significantly inhibited the pain response at the different dosages with the most significant inhibition observed at higher doses at both phases. With a percentage inhibition of 81.31 and100, 56.82 and 46.97, for the crude ethanol extract andn-hexane extract respectively. The anti-inflammatory effect of the crude extract and n-hexane inhibited the oedema dose dependently and a maximum inhibition of 60.00% was observed at 400 mg/kg bd.wt. In the crude ethanol. Hence, the use of this part of plant in the treatment of ailments related to the analgesic and anti-inflammatory has gain scientific support.