Study Of Extracts Of Curcuma On Pain In Mice And Acute Toxic Test

The drug Curcuma longa L. is the dry rootstalk of thecurcuma herb. Both turmeric volatile oil and curcuminare the effective component of Curcuma longa.The curcumin was extracted from curcuma by usingethanol while the volatile oil was extracted by steamdistillation. And study the effect of different extracts ofcurcuma as well as the pure curcumin on pain in mice.The pain-killing effect was test by hot plate model andbody twisting model induced by acetic acid in mice.Observe the pain threshold and the twisting number afteradministering the drugs.It turned out that in the mice administered withturmeric volatile oil, the pain threshold was increasedand the twisting number was markedly reduced (P<0.001).And the alcohol abstracts can also reduce the twistingnumber obviously (P<0.01). The results indicated thatthe two extracts obtained from curcuma have significantanalgesic effects in mice. But the difference of twistingnumber was not so significant while treated with purecurcumin(P>0.05). So the analgesic effect of Curcumalonga probably has nothing business with the componentof curcumin.The acute toxicity test can not tell the LD50 of alcoholabstracts. The body weight,food intake,water intakewere monitored before and after taking the alcoholabstracts of curcuma. All the targets observed werenormal. The test showed the alcohol abstracts fromcurcuma had no apparently acute virulent function.In the test of the acute toxicity of the volatile oil,theLD50 of the volatile oil is 5.125 g/kg in mice. It can beconcluded that the volatile oil from curcuma has toxicityin intermediate grade and it is suggested that reducing apart of content of volatile oil in rhizomes of Curcumalonga may enlarge the application range of the rhizomes.