Plants and herbal poisoning in Bangladesh

Abstract

Acute poisoning caused by plant is not uncommon in Bangladesh. Intentional or accidental plant poisoning sometimes results in morbidity and significant death. People have been traditionally using medicinal plant from the very early period of civilization, and this practice is still continued in a well-established manner, especially for the treatment of some chronic non-curable disease; medicinal plants are considered nontoxic by the general public due to their natural origin. The mixture of different plants and herbs made by a traditional healer and their canvassing on the street magnetize a wide range of people. The easy low-cost availability and the consumption of unknown and inappropriate mixture of mysterious medicinal plants sometime cause hepatic and renal toxicity, even deaths which are mostly unreported. Inadvertent deaths do occur in children in Bangladesh due to plant poisoning. Food scarcity during a disaster also drives poor people to deviate their usual consumption practices and take immature or nonprocess plants which are occasionally fatal. Plant poisoning for suicidal attempt is now declining mostly due to the availability of other easy method like agrochemical and pharmaceutical drug. Suicidal attempt by yellow oleander is infrequently reported in different hospitals. In Bangladesh, once Datura plant seeds were popularly used by miscreants as a stufying agent offered through different food items to a bystander to make them stupor in order to rob the capital. A separate group of poisonings with significant mortality and morbidity occurs after women use plants to induce abortions. Treatment for most plant poisoning is symptomatic, and specific antidotes are used in only a very few cases.