Anti-inflammatory activity of Adenanthera pavonina L., Fabaceae, in experimental animals

Adenanthera pavonina L, Fabaceae alt. Leguminosae, Bengali name 'rakta kombol', is an Indian medicinal plant. It is endemic to Southern China and India, and widely naturalized in Malaysia, Western and Eastern Africa as well as in most islands of both the Pacific and Caribbean regions. This plant has been used in traditional medicine for the treatment of asthma, boil, diarrhoea, gout, inflammations, rheumatism, tumour and ulcers, and as a tonic. The dried and ground bark of A. pavonina L. was extracted, successively, with petroleum ether (PE), dichloromethane (DCM), ethyl acetate (EtOAc) and methanol (MeOH), and the resulting extracts were assessed in vivo for anti-inflammatory activity on carrageenan-induced rat hind paw oedema as a model of inflammation. The extracts were administered orally at the doses of 200 and 400 mg/kg body weight, and statistically significant (p