Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Oriental Pharmacy and Experimental Medicine https://doi.org/10.1007/s13596-019-00362-4 RESEARCH ARTICLE Ethnopharmacological survey on traditional medicinal plants at Keraniganj, Dhaka, Bangladesh Farhana Israt Jahan 1  · Sharifa Sultana 1  · Shadia Afrin Brishti 1  · Oby Dulla 1 Received: 19 September 2018 / Accepted: 20 January 2019 © Institute of Korean Medicine, Kyung Hee University 2019 Abstract The conventional source of medicinal plants is an important way for daily curative uses in rural area throughout Bangladesh. Folk medicinal specialists or Kavirajes, assume an indispensable part in a medicinal services arrangement of both provincial and urban populace of the nation. It is vital to conduct broad meetings of individual Kavirajes of an area to get the overall status of medicinal plants. A survey was accomplished in the rustic territory of Atibazaar, Keraniganj Upazila, Dhaka, Bangladesh. This investigation has uncovered a sum of 38 plants out of which 25 plants were identifed, which belongs to 21 families. Whole plants and/or plant parts, like leaves, stems, barks, roots, fowers, fruits, seeds and wood were usually used by Kavirajes for the treatment of diferent illnesses. Leaves (84%) were the most oftentimes used plant parts, trailed by roots (52%), fruits (16%) stems and barks (16%), entire plants (12%), seeds (12%), blossoms (8%) and wood (4%). Add up to 30 diverse individual illnesses professed to be restored by plant parts including respiratory tract disorders (asthma, cough, whooping cough, bronchitis), fever, gastrointestinal disorders (constipation, diarrhea, abdominal pain, blood dysentery, fatulence), arthritis, pain, headache, irregular menstruation, piles, tooth infections, whitening teeth, diabetes, skin diseases, acne, insect, animals and reptiles bites, urinary tract disorders, infammation and nervousness. Several uses of the plants could be validated by available literature review. It is expected that other plants used for treatment of various diseases by the Kavirajes can be subjected for further bio-activity and phytochemical studies, which prompts disclosure of new medications. Keywords Ethno-medicinal study · Kavirajes · Medicinal plants · Ailments · Atibazaar Introduction Bangladesh is a low-lying, riverine nation situated in South Asia. Most of the populace in Bangladesh live in rural areas and do not usage modern health care facilities because of insufcient road transport, the absence of allopathic doc- tors and hospitals or clinics, non-afordability to purchase modern medicines, and age-old reliance on folk medicine practitioners, who are locally known as Kavirajes for cure of various ailments. The Kavirajes depend mainly on medicinal plants for cure of various ailments (Dulla and Jahan 2017). Medicinal plants are the ancient forms of medicinal ser- vices items. They are additionally important for pharma- cological research and medication advancement, not only when plant constituents are used directly as healing agents, but also when they are used as basic resources for the syn- thesis of drugs or as models for pharmacologically active compounds (Mukherjee and Verpoorte 2003). As of late, in view of the expenses and also serious side- efects of various current drugs, consideration has swung back to medicinal plants as an important area for disclosure of newer drugs with less cost and symptoms. It has been accounted for that around 64% of the aggregate total popu- lace is utilizing traditional medication to fulfll their health- care needs (Cotton and Wilkie 1996) and these conventional plants contribute to 33% of medications produced around the world (Rogo 2004) not exactly when plant constituents are used particularly as therapeutic administrators, yet fur- thermore when they are used as crucial materials for the association of medicines or as models for pharmacologically unique blends (Mukherjee and Verpoorte 2003). Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s13596-019-00362-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Oby Dulla mamun94@diu.edu.bd 1 Department of Pharmacy, Dafodil International University, Dhaka, Bangladesh