William Pote

Poultry farming represents an important sector for the livelihood of rural communities in Zimbabwe. Farmers raise poultry in order to meet demands on household food and as additional sources of income. However, the production of birds is hampered by a variety of diseases. The impact of diseases is severe for poor communities who have limited access to modern veterinary services and, therefore, rely on indigenous medicines for the treatment of livestock ailments. Here we review the medicinal plants that are used for the treatment of poultry diseases in Zimbabwe. A systematic web search and review was conducted on research literature relating to medicinal plants that are used for the treatment of poultry diseases in Zimbabwe. Data were collected from a total of 15 Zimbabwean studies meeting specific inclusion criteria. Data from published studies lacking information on study area, scientific names of plants and without information about plants that are used to treat poultry diseases w...

Copyright © 2015 Andrew T. Mugwagwa et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Crinum macowanii has been found to contain alkaloids that have activity against acetylcholinesterase enzyme in vitro. The present study was undertaken to investigate the in vivo ability of hydroethanolic crude extract of Crinum macowanii to ameliorate memory impairment induced by scopolamine.Thirty-six male Balb/c mice weighing around 25–35 g were employed in the present investigation. Y-maze and novel object recognition apparatus served as the exteroceptive behavioural models, and scopolamine-induced amnesia served as the interoceptive behavioural model. C. macowanii (10, 20, and 40mg/kg p.o.) was administered in single doses to the mice. Donepezil (3mg/kg p.o.) was used as a positive control agent. C. macowanii extract reversed...

Antimicrobial agents for treatment of mastitis in dairy cows may result in drug residues in milk, suppressing production of fermented dairy products. The objective of this study was to compare the effects of lactating cow and dry cow intra-mammary antimicrobial preparations on fermentation of milk. Samples of ultra-high temperature-treated milk + starter culture (Lactococcus lactis subsp. lactis), were prepared. Using serial double dilution, erythromycin-trimethoprim lactating cow formula was added to five samples at 62.5-1000 mg/L and cloxacillin benzathine dry cow preparation to another five at 75-1200mg/L. A negative control with neither starter culture nor antimicrobial agent, and a positive control with starter culture but no antimicrobial agent were included. All samples were incubated at 30° C for two days and osmolarity (mOsmoles/L) monitored by a cryoscopic osmometer. From a starting value of 301±1.72 for fresh milk, osmolarity of non-inoculated milk did not rise beyond 314...

Boophone disticha is one of the most important medicinal bulbs of Southern Africa. Previous in vitro studies have shown that it's crude ethanolic extracts and some alkaloidal phytoconstituents possesses high affinity for the serotonin transporter protein (SERT) and serotonin receptor 1a (5HT1a) which are both implicated in the pathogenesis and treatment of anxiety disorders. However, there are no in vivo studies that validates the anxiolytic actions of the plant. This study was therefore set to determine the anxiolytic-like activity of an orally administered hydroethanolic extract of B. disticha bulbs in naive mice using the behavioural tests of anxiety. Naïve adult male BALB/c mice were randomly placed into five treatment groups (n = 6-10): vehicle control (10ml/kg 0.9% NaCl), positive control (1mg/kg diazepam) and the hydroethanolic extract of B. disticha (10, 25 and 40mg/kg p.o.). Souk test, elevared plus maze and open field tests were used to evaluate the anxiolytic-like act...

Crinum macowanii has been found to contain alkaloids that have activity against acetylcholinesterase enzyme in vitro. The present study was undertaken to investigate the in vivo ability of hydroethanolic crude extract of Crinum macowanii to ameliorate memory impairment induced by scopolamine. Thirty-six male Balb/c mice weighing around 25–35 g were employed in the present investigation. Y-maze and novel object recognition apparatus served as the exteroceptive behavioural models, and scopolamine-induced amnesia served as the interoceptive behavioural model. C. macowanii (10, 20, and 40 mg/kg p.o.) was administered in single doses to the mice. Donepezil (3 mg/kg p.o.) was used as a positive control agent. C. macowanii extract reversed the amnesia induced by scopolamine as indicated by a dose-dependent increase in spontaneous alternation performance in the Y-maze task. C. macowanii 40 mg/kg showed significant activity (p<0.05 versus negative control), comparable to that of the posit...

The aim of this study was to evaluate osmometry as a tool in quality analysis of milk. The osmolality of raw milk, sterilized milk, skimmed UHT (ultra-high temperature-treated) milk, pasteurized milk, standardized UHT milk and fermented milk (Lactococcus lactis culture) was determined by freezing point osmometry. The relationship between osmolality and pH of fermented milk was further investigated during spontaneous fermentation of UHT milk at 37 °C for 48 h. Average osmolality values (mean ± SD) were raw milk-290.2 ± 7.98, sterilized milk-290.2 ± 5.84, skimmed UHT milk-290.8 ± 3.31, pasteurized milk-283.6 ± 2.28, standardized UHT milk-281 ± 4.59 and fermented milk-466.0 ± 17.30 mOsmoles kg(-1). For fresh milk samples, 88 % showed normal osmolality, 8 % were hypo-osmotic and 4 % hyper-osmotic. Fermentation studies revealed a high negative correlation between osmolality and pH, with a correlation coefficient of -97.49 %. Hypo-osmotic milk shows mixing of milk with water along the production chain. Hyper-osmotic milk indicates fermentation of milk at high ambient temperatures or with prolonged storage. It may also reveal adulteration of fresh milk with a soluble substance. Osmolality was highest for fermented milk owing to production of lactic acid during fermentation. This was confirmed by the high negative correlation between osmolality and pH of milk in fermentation studies. Hence the osmolality of fermented milks may be used as an index of the extent of fermentation.