Nigella sativa belongs to the family Ranunculaceae and is called Habbatus sauda in Hausa. It is an annual herbaceous plant and is believed to be indigenous to the Mediterranean region but now it has been cultivated into other parts of the world including Africa (Mozoffarin,1998; Zargari, 1990).
According to Amin (1991), the seeds are believed to have galactagogue, carminative,laxative and antiparasitic properties.
An antibacterial effect of the phenolics fraction of the seed oil was first reported by Topozada et al. (1965). Latter, the diethyl ether extract of Nigella sativa was also reported by Hanafi and Hatem (1991) to inhibit the growth of Bacteria.
Aqueous suspension of Nigella sativa seeds was reported to have an analgesic effect comparable to aspirin test on rat (Randhawa and Al-Ghandhi, 2002).
The antischisommicidal effect against Schistosoma
mansoni and antimalarial activities have been studied(Azza et al., 2005; Abdulelah and Zainal-Abidin, 2007).
The chemical constituents of the fixed and volatile oils of Nigella sativa obtained from Iran have been reported by Nickavar et al. (2003).
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