ANTIPYRETIC ACTIVITY STUDY OF SARCOSTEMMA ACIDUM VOIGT

Sarcostemma acidum Voigt is a xerophytic plant of the family Apocynaceae. Plant is locally known as Somlata. It is a traditional medicinal plant used to prepare Somras. The plant is mainly found in Bihar, West Bengal, Odisha and South India. It is mostly grown in dry rocky places. S. acidum is a shrub, more branched but no leaves. The stems are jointed with each other. These are green, cylindrical having 2 to 4 meter in length and 0.5 cm. to 1 cm. in diameter. The leaves are present opposite but are reduced to scales. So, the plant is leafless in nature. The flowers are actinomorphic, light yellowish white in nature. The roots are branched and each root contain 3 to 5 sub-root branches. The plant extract of S. acidum contains carbohydrates, glycosides, alkaloids, tannins, flavonoids, proteins, steroids, triterpenoids, and fixed oils. Ethnomedicinally the S. acidum was used in otitis, dog bite, snake bite, rabies, emesis, arthritis and leprosy. The juice of this plant having some medicinal value, so used as natural restorative for health. S. acidum stem extract inhibits spermatogenesis and reduce the sperm count. Also, the extract of S. acidum shown antipsychotic effect. This study was taken to know about the other therapeutic property of Sarcostemma acidum. So, here the evaluation of antipyretic activity study of stem extract of S acidum was taken and it was taken by using Brewer’s yeast induced pyrexia rat model. The result showed that the aqueous extract of S. acidum has significant antipyretic effect.