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Data on the epidemiology of epilepsy in a rural community in a developing country would be of value in planning a decentralized management of this malady in its early stages commensurate with available local resources. A detailed screening instrument covering various seizure types was used by trained paramedical workers in a door-to-door survey of a population of 64,963 in rural South India. The prevalence period was from 1 April 1990 to 31 March 1991. The crude prevalence rate per 1000 for active epilepsy was 4.38 for males, 3.40 for females and 3.91 for both. The minimum and maximum prevalence rates, the latter computed from a validation sample, were 3.91 and 4.63 for active epilepsy; 0.28 and 0.77 for inactive epilepsy and 4.19 and 5.41 for life-time prevalence. In addition, corresponding figures for hot-water epilepsy, a type of reflex epilepsy peculiar to this area, were 2.49 and 2.99 for active phase; 0.35 and 0.85 for inactive phase and 2.85 and 3.83 for life-time prevalence. The incidence rate for epilepsy was 49.3 per 100,000, the same as in developed countries. These data do not support the concept that the prevalence of epilepsy in developing countries is twice that in the developed world. However, the role of local/regional variations should be borne in mind before extrapolating the figures to an entire country.

Ethanol extract (FRE) and water extract (FRW) of Ficus racemosa (family: Moraceae) were subjected to free radical scavenging both by steady state and time resolved methods such as nanosecond pulse radiolysis and stopped-flow spectrophotometric analyses. FRE exhibited significantly higher steady state antioxidant activity than FRW. FRE exhibited concentration dependent DPPH, ABTS•−, hydroxyl radical and superoxide radical scavenging and inhibition of lipid peroxidation with IC50 comparable with tested standard compounds. In vitro radioprotective potential of FRE was studied using micronucleus assay in irradiated Chinese hamster lung fibroblast cells (V79). Pretreatment with different doses of FRE 1h prior to 2 Gy γ-radiation resulted in a significant (P < 0.001) decrease in the percentage of micronucleated binuclear V79 cells. Maximum radioprotection was observed at 20 μg/ml of FRE. The radioprotection was found to be significant (P < 0.01) when cells were treated with optimum dose of FRE (20 μg/ml) 1 h prior to 0.5, 1, 2, 3 and 4 Gy γ-irradiation compared to the respective radiation controls. The cytokinesis-block proliferative index indicated that FRE does not alter radiation induced cell cycle delay. Based on all these results we conclude that the ethanol extract of F. racemosa acts as a potent antioxidant and a probable radioprotector.