Abstract

Pleurotus eryngii is a mushroom growing in the Bakhtiari province of Iran
and is known as a mountain fungus. The fresh fungus is used as a food, and
when dried its powder has been used as an anthelmintic drug. We decided to
study the anthelmintic activity of P. eryngii on Hymenolepis nana (cestode) and
Syphacia obvelata (nematode), using experimental animals. Water extract of P.
eryngii was prepared by the maceration method. White mice (Suri) laboratory
bred were infected with H. nana worms. Four concentrations of aqueous extract
of the fungus (484.5,800,900 and 1500 mg fungus/ml) were fed three times to
the infected mice. The anthelmintic effects of the aqueous extract of the fungus
on S. obvelata were also studied in the infected animals using the same procedure.
The results of the study indicated that the highest anthelmintic effects of
the fungus on H. nana and S. obvelata were 89% and 95%, respectively