Abstract

ACUTE AND SUB-ACUTE ORAL TOXICITY STUDY OF SIDDHA HERBO-MINERAL FORMULATION RASA MEZHUGU (RM) ON EXPERIMENTAL ANIMALS

M. Kanniyakumari* and K. Nandhagopal

ABSTRACT

Siddha medicine has immense faith in the miracles of mercurial drugs in the prolongation of life through rejuvenating treatments and intense yogic practices. By this, the heavy metals like mercury are modified to provide the safe therapeutic value in very low doses. When it is treated with some kind of herbals and cane jaggery, it becomes a waxy consistency substance called as „Mezhugu‟.[1,2] These kinds of medicines were useful in the treatment of some chronic diseases like Rheumatoid arthritis, Hemiplegia, Spondylitis etc. Hence the trial drug Rasa mezhugu subjected for acute and sub-acute toxicity studies to prove the safety and siddhar‟s believe towards the purification methods of mercury. From the acute toxicity study was performed as per OECD guideline-423[5][6], it was concluded that the test drug Rasa mezhugu as class 5 safety drug, which has no lethal effect up to 5g/kg body weight after oral administration in mice. Sub-acute Toxicity study was performed as per OECD guideline-407 to identify the pathological toxicity changes in the vital organs of the testing animals.[7,8] The Rasa Mezhugu did not produce any oral acute or sub-acute toxicity in both female and male rats. Overall results by Haematological parameters, Biochemical parameters and Pathological examination suggest that Rasa Mezhugu is relatively safe in animal models. These results showed that the use of Rasa Mezhugu is safe and explained the utilization of the drug as traditional medicine.

Keywords: Mercury, Rasa mezhugu, Acute toxicity and Subacute Toxicity.