Abstract:
Today the use of herbal medicine is highly recommended. People now prefer to use herbal medicine to minimize the negative effects of synthetic drugs. However, the using of herbal medicine without a proper guidelines also caused negative effect to human health. Herbal medicine that widely used by the people of Riau is pelawan (Tristaniopsis obovata R.Br.). This plant is believed could cure various diseases and had been proven as antiurolithiatic agent. This study was conducted to determine the effect of ethanol extract of pelawan leaves on Wistar rat’s small intestine. The small intestine was processed into histological slides using paraffin methods and were stained with HE. The results proved that the ethanol extract of pelawan leaves on three different dose affects histological change in small intestine. The changes including inflammation on lamina propria, villous and capilary track, atrophy, hyperplasia, and lymphocitosis. The changes were increasingly looked at higher dose. These histological changes are the form of increased response of intestinal cells against invasion of foreign substances, thus we could concluded that pelawan leave could improve the protective response in small intestine.
