Suleiman Al-Khalil(3) Zahi Turabi (2) Mohammed Musmar3) and Sami Yaish

Abstract

The shrub Rosmarinus officinalis L.(family lamiaceae) is evergreen plant, reaching 1-1 .5m in hight with thick, lanceolate and dark — green leaves, and a amall, whitish or pale lilac flowers (1,2,3). The shrub has upright branches and tough, blunt-ended. The plant grows wild on the hills of the West Bank(1). Phytochemical investigation of R, officinalis resulted in the isolation and idenification of a number of compounds. These include diterbenoids (4-7) flavonoid glucuronides (5), carnosol (406) rosmandol, epirosmanol (4) and urosolic acid(6).
R officinalis has been used in folk. Medicine in the Arabian region as a diuretic agent, comforts the brain, sharpens and refreshes the memory, stimulates and strengthens the body after an illness or when one is exhausted, treats gastrointestinal, as well as headache (8.9.10). Therefore, it was decided to study the effect of different extracts of this shrup on the contractions of isolated rabbit ileum.