Gnanasekaran D

Disadvantage in presently available synthetic drugs for inflammation is that they cause gastrointestinal irritation and reappearance of symptoms after discontinuation. Need for screening and development of novel, but better anti-inflammatory drugs and indigenous medicinal plants could be a logical source to find these. Herbal therapy is used to treat a large variety of ailment and symptoms, e.g., inflammation, fever and pain; however, there are no adequate experimental evidences about their effectiveness. The purpose of this investigation was study to the anti-inflammatory and anti-pyretic properties of stem bark extract of Haldinia cordifolia in rats. Haldinia cordifolia (rubiaceae) has been extensively used in folk medicine for the treatment of ulcers, burns, fevers, antiseptic, diarrhoea and dysentery. The ethanolic extract of dried stem bark of Haldinia cordifolia was investigated for anti-inflammatory (carragenan induced rat paw oedema) and anti-pyretic (brewer’s yeast induced pyrexia) activities. Pre treatment with the extract (200 - 400 mg/kg, p.o.) significantly prevented increase in volume of paw oedema in dose dependent manner. Its effects on antipyretic activity were also significant and reduce fever at higher doses. In conclusion, this study has established the anti-inflammatory activity and antipyretic activity of Haldinia cordifolia and thus justifies the ethnic uses of the plant. Key words: Inflammation, Pyretic, Haldinia cordifolia, Ethanol, Carrageenan, Paw oedema.

  Liver plays a major role in detoxification. Any injury to it or impairment of its function may lead to many implications on one’s health. Management of liver diseases is still a challenge to modern medicine. The allopathic medicine has little to offer for the alleviation of hepatic ailments whereas the most important representatives are of phytoconstituents. The work presented in this paper is on plant mentioned as Kayakarpam plants in published as well as unpublished palm leaf literatures. The study was aimed to evaluation of the hepatoprotective activity of the whole plant Sida cordata on the Chang cell line (normal human liver cells). The ethanolic extract was tested for its inhibitory effect on chang cell Line. The percentage viability of the cell line was carried out. The cytotoxicity of Sida cordata on normal human liver cell was evaluated by the SRB assay [Sulphorhodamine B assay] and MTT assay [(3-(4, 5 dimethylthiazole –2 yl)-2, 5 diphenyl tetrazolium bromide) assay]. The principle involved is the cleavage of tetrazolium salt MTT into a blue coloured derivative by living cells which contains mitochondrial enzyme succinate dehydrogenase However, the information available on the pharmacological activity of the plant is very limited. Hence, it was proposed to carry out a preliminary in vitro analysis of the hepato protective activity of the plant, which gave promising results.