"CHEMICAL AND BIOCHEMICAL" STUDIES ON SOME TRADITIONAL VIRILISING PREPARATIONS IN USE IN NIGERIA

Abstract

The decline in the sexual activity of the male with increasein age used to be a major concern of clinicians and scientists from the beginning of knowledge. Modern medicine has, however, provided a means, in termsof testosteronepropionate injections, of abrogating such symptoms. In Africa, the age-long tradition of cure by herbs and mixtures of plants and animals parts, commonly referred to as "agbo" in the Yoruba speaking parts of ’West Africa still persists; and many are known for restoring partly this decline in sexual activities of the older male. We have analysed four of the known Yoruba virilising medicinal preparations for their biological activity and potency. Using the famous biological assay methods of the growth of the capon's comb and increase in the weights of the rat's prostate glands and seminal vesicles, as well as the rat's urine when these local drugs were injected into the castrated animals, we found that all the local drugs contain, to some extent, androgenic hormones,-which are capable of stimulating the growth of these organs. The various local drugs were hydrolysed with acid and a modified method is presented by which they were extracted.

With other, followed by chemical and physical tests which indicated the presence of theseandrogenic steroids in the local drugs. Other tests on the "drugs" showed the presence of such substance as proteins, and fatty acids in the various local drugs, outside the sex hormones. Thin-layer chromatography was used to separate and purify the various steroids extracted from each of thelocal drugs and infrared spectrophotometry was used to show the presence of the sex steroids in the local medicines. The rat experiments gave comparable results with those of the whole crude drug when the steroidal extracts from the local drugswere re-injected, while the response of capons to the steroidal extracts were lower compared with the whole crude drug. Of major importance is the presence of androgenic steroids in one of the local drugs which is made strictly from plant roots. This is very significant because androgenic steroids are usually associated with animal parts.