Symposium : Minority Affairs Symposium: Medicinal Plants and Ethnobotany
Abs #
S082: Ethnobotanical and laboratory efficacy of a wound healing plant, ohoru (Symphonia globulifera L.f.), used by the Winikina Warao of the Orinoco River Delta, Venezuela.
The purpose of this study was to determine whether plant bioactivity corroborates ethnobotanical use. To measure ethnobotanical efficacy, a questionnaire was administered to 40 Winikina Warao respondents of two villages in the Orinoco River Delta, Venezuela. Ohoru (Symphonia globulifera L.f.) had the highest overall use value for wound healing and was selected for laboratory analysis. The latex of ohoru, collected in the field, was submitted to an in vivo double incision wound healing bioassay using rats. Wound healing bioactivity was measured by comparing breaking strength means of wounds treated with 5% and 10% w/w ohoru ointments with control groups. Two types of efficacy emerge from this study. The questionnaire results reveal that use of ohoru as a wound healing plant continues to be popular among the Winikina Warao. Thus, ethnobotanical efficacy of ohoru as a wound healing plant is corroborated. On the other hand, ohoru treatments did not do as well or better than the control group in the laboratory. Experimental error, sample size, and extract preparation may have contributed to the lack of laboratory efficacy. Although plant bioactivity did not corroborate ethnobotanical use in this case, ohoru is an effective wound healing plant because within its cultural context, it continues to be used for treating laceration wounds. Further studies of ohoru in the field and the lab are needed to more effectively measure its wound healing bioactivity.
