A Pharmacological and Phytochemical Evaluation of Medicinal Plants Used by the Harbang Clan of the Tripura Tribal Community of Mirsharai Area, Chittagong District, Bangladesh

Abstract Background: Recent years have witnessed a continual decline of medicinal plant availability as well as a decline in the numbers of tribal traditional healers and their medicinal knowledge in Bangladesh. Yet these medicinal plants used for treatment of various ailments by tribal traditional healers can be of considerable interest to modern science in their potential for discovery of lead compounds, which can lead to better drugs. Objective: The primary objective of the present study was to conduct an ethnomedicinal survey among the traditional healers of the Harbang clan (Tripura tribe) of Mirsharai to gain information on medicinal plants used to treat various ailments with the further objective of evaluating the efficacy of these medicinal plants when compared with known phytochemicals and modern-research-based pharmacologic activity studies on these plants. Methods: Semistructured interviews and guided field-walk methods were used to gather information on medicinal plants used by the Tripura tra...