[The anticestodal activity of preparations made from the breadfruit].

Breadfruit tree (Artocarpus tonkinensis) is used in Laotian folk medicine for the treatment of taeniasis. Breadfruit tree preparations impair in vitro the motility of the cestodes Hymenolepis nana causing their motor excitation, contracture and death. The latter is observed when fairly high concentrations of the preparations (10(-2) = 2.10(-3)) are used. In mice experimentally invaded by H. nana it was shown that the water extraction of breadfruit tree substance is rather less effective than its ethanol extraction and has some purgative action, which increases the therapeutic effect.