CHAPTER ONE

1.0           INTRODUCTION AND LITERATURE REVIEW

Africa is endowed with so many plants that can be used for medicinal purposes. In fact, out of the approximated 6400 plant species used in tropical Africa, more than 4,000 are used as medicinal plants (Stanley, 2009). So many medicinal plants have been used by traditional medicine practitioners in Nigeria for the treatment of different diseases. Traditional medicinal plants have positive role of in the prevention or control of some metabolic disorders like diabetes, heart diseases and certain types of cancers (Zhang, 1996).  One of the great advantages of these medicinal plants is that these are easily available and have no side effects (Mehta, 1982).

       Plants are living organisms belonging to the kingdom plantae. They include familiar organisms such as trees. They are typically characterized by their green colour, which include common groups such as trees, herbs, flowers and fern and algae. Worldwide trend towards the utilization of natural plant remedies has created an enormous need for information about the properties and uses of the medicinal plants. Medicinal plants play a major role in the health care sector of developing nations for the management of diseases. Thus herbal medicines have a prominent role to play in the pharmaceutical markets and health care sector of the 21st century (Annan and Houghton, 2007).

       In recent years, there has been a gradual revival of interest in the use of medicinal plants in developing countries because herbal medicines have been reported safe and without any adverse side effect especially when compared with synthetic drugs. Thus, a search for new drugs with better and cheaper substitutes from plant origin are a natural choice. The medicinal value of these plants lie in some chemical substances that produce a definite physiological action on the human body (Edeoga et al., 2005).

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