Abstract

Many pathological conditions are associated with pain, fever and inflammation. Synthetic drugs available for the treatment of these ailments accompany many unwanted side effect; most prominent of which is the gastric ulcer. Present study was thus aimed at evaluating the analgesic, anti-pyretic and anti-inflammatory potential of aqueous methanolic extract of leaves of plant Jatropha gossypifolia. Anti-inflammatory activity was evaluated using carrageenan induced paw edema. Acetic acid induced writhing test and hot plate method was used to assess the analgesic activity. Anti-pyretic activity was ascertained using brewer’s yeast induced pyrexia. The aqueous methanolic extract of the plant J. gassypifolia have demonstrated significant analgesic, anti-pyretic and anti-inflammatory activity at 200 mg/kg dose. The data was statistically analyzed by one way ANOVA followed by post hoc Dunnett’s test for multiple comparisons. It has thus concluded that aqueous methanolic extract of leaves of plant J. gassypifolia possess analgesic, anti-inflammatory and anti-pyretic properties. These results strongly support the ethno-pharmacological use of this plant as anti-pyretic, analgesic and anti-inflammatory agent.

Key words:  Jatropha gossypifolia, anti-inflammatory, analgesic, anti-pyretic.