An ethnopharmacological study of Salvia Argentea used by the local people of Saida in northwestern Algeria

Abstract

This ethnopharmacological survey is a first study to assess the traditional uses of Salvia argentea by the local people of Saida, located in the north-western region of Algeria. This plant belonging to the Lamiaceae family, orig-inating from North Africa, is still relatively little studied in Algeria and has no application in conventional medicine. Out of a total of 500 people from the local population interviewed individually, 405 people, including 304 women and 101 men, reported using S. argentea, aged 20 to 90 years, 34.57% of whom are illiterate. Thus, the survey showed that S. argentea is generally used in the treatment of respiratory diseases (93.33%). The leaves are the most commonly used part (87.41%), prepared mainly in powder form (71.60%) and administered exclusively orally (99.51%). The survey collected very valuable information on the traditional therapeutic uses of S. argentea by the study population and for the national pharmacopoeia. This collected information can be considered as a starting point for modern scientific re-search in order to discover new natural molecules with therapeutic interests.