Biodiversity or diversity of being is the abundance of beauty and invention. It is also a vital resource for the human being. He takes the essential of his living from it, such as food, medicines, raw materials. Thanks to numerous interactions that living organisms tie among them and with the milieu in which they live, diversity of the beings contributes also to, from a large part, to establish and entertain the necessary conditions to maintain life on earth, such as forming the ecosystem, habitat, climatic regulation, water purification. Now a days, biodiversity is threatened and we see that many plants are disappearing. The death of biodiversity would limit the discovery of new potential treatments against a great deal of diseases and other sanitary problems. In many developing countries, access to conventional medicine is limited to great centers. Difficulties of moving, the least qualified staff, high cost of services and of conventional medicines and socioeconomic factors give to the great number of people, the unique choice of traditional medicine to treat their current diseases. Elsewhere, some pharmaceutical medicines become more and more inefficient in front of some referential molecules, that is why it becomes necessary to continue investigating in plants in order to display new pharmaceutical properties and eventually, new molecules. Plants pertaining to same families or to neighboring families and growing in the same biotope are liable to symbolize the same chemical molecules that is why one speaks of chemotype. One can explain putting forward chemotype by the fact that the same aromatic plant, botanically defined, synthetizes an extract that will be biochemically different in function of the biotope in which it grows. Thus, the nature of the soil, the altitude, sun, climatic conditions, neighboring vegetal population are elements that influence the extract produced by the plant. It is in this context that the kind Zanthoxylum (Zanthoxylum zanthoxyloids and Zanthoxylum macrophylum) interested us and is now studied. This kind has an average of more than two hundred and fifty (250) specifies, of the most aborescent and pertains to tropical countries. These plants have nervures and have secretive pockets that produce essential oils. The selection of these species is based on chimio taxinomical considerations, on its use in African traditional medicine and also on the biological results of the sifting. In Kabyè country (Togo) for example, the Z. macrophylum roots are used in soup to heal intestinal wounds and belly diseases in general. They are used generally to prepare meal for the mother. Barks are used to cure rheumatism. Studies carried out in Mali and Togo on Z. zanthoxyloids show that these roots are used as teethbrushes: they cure toothache, cure infections and its’ harsh flavor is highly appreciated. The timber is used for building and as toothpick. Meanwhile in Nigeria, in Benin and in the CAR, it is used to diminish the drepanocytary crisis frequencies. Its antidrepanocytary action is to render the round form to sick people’s corpuscles. In order to eradicate completely any sick people’s crisis, the dose corresponds to one gram of root’s powder to be taken three times a day. Thus, the general goal of this study is to set a case study followed by a phytochemical investigation of Z. zanthoxyloids and Z. macrophylum specific to the CAR and Togo.

With Best Regards,
Tony Blair
Journal Coordinator
American Journal of Phytomedicine and Clinical Therapeutics