Plants of Haiti used as antifertility agents

ABSTRACT

Haitian empirical medicine sprang from both European (16th to 19th century) and African (especially voodoo) traditional therapies. The use of medicinal herbs is highly developed. Our purpose was to list the plants held to be antifertility agents n the island. We identified about twenty species more or less currently used by the women as abortifacients or emmenagogues. The chemistry and active components of a few species are well-known. However, for most of them, some were partially studied, and no relation could be established between their chemical composition and their potential activities, and the rest are chemically unknown. We chemically screened extracts of casearia ilicifolia, Eleutherine bulbosa, Rhoeo spathacea and the leaves of C.ilieifolia, and naphthoquinones, and a new anthraquinine, anthracene -9, 10-dione-1, 5-diol-4-methoxy-3-methyl-2-carboxylec acid methyl ester, in the bulbs of E. bulbosa, R.spathacea showed a stimulative activity on mouse uterus. Antifertility screening tests of C.ilieifolia and E. bulbosa showed activity in rats, but also probably toxicity