A quantitative approach to ethnobotany: The selection and assessment of a wound healing plant, ohoru (Symphonia globulifera L.f.), used by the Winikina Warao of the Orinoco River Delta, Venezuela.

摘要

The purpose of this dissertation research was to determine whether a plant's bioactivity, measured in a controlled setting, corroborates its ethnobotanical use. A questionnaire was used to measure plant use knowledge for 18 plants from 40 randomly selected Winikina Warao respondents of two villages in the Orinoco River Delta, Venezuela. Eleven (28%) respondents reported ohoru (Symphonia globulifera L.f.) as a treatment for wounds. Ohoru also had the highest Overall Use Value for wound healing and was selected for in vivo wound healing analysis.; The latex of ohoru was prepared and submitted to two in vivo linear incision wound healing bioassays to measure its wound healing activity by comparing breaking strength means of wounds treated with prepared 5% and 10% w/w ohoru extracts with control groups. Fresh ohoru extract was collected from the cortex of Symphonia globulifera trees in the Winikina region of the Orinoco River Delta. The single incision wound healing bioassay demonstrated that wounds treated with ohoru are healing at a normal rate. The double incision wound healing bioassay results demonstrate that ohoru does not do better than the control group in affecting breaking strength.; Two types of efficacy emerge from this study: efficacy as reported by the Winikina Warao and efficacy as measured in the laboratory. The questionnaire results demonstrate that use of ohoru as a wound healing plant continues to be popular. Thus, efficacy of ohoru as a wound healing plant as reported by the Winikina Warao is corroborated. On the other hand, ohoru treatments used for the double incision wound healing bioassay did not do as well or better than the control group in the laboratory. Experimental error, sample group size, extract preparation, oxidation of ohoru, and use of dimethylsulfoxide as a solvent, may have contributed to the negative results of the double incision wound healing bioassay. This does not mean that ohoru is not an effective wound healing plant. Within its cultural context, ohoru is used to treat non-venomous laceration wounds and remains popular. Further studies in the laboratory are needed to quantitatively measure its wound healing bioactivity.