An Experimental Study on the Analgesic Activity of Leaves of Guchakaranja (Quassia indica Gaertn)

Ayurvedic health care system mainly based on plant and plant based products. Plants have been the primary basis for drug discoveries and developing new drugs. The drug Guchakaranja is mentioned as one of the Karanja variety by Raja Nighantu and Nighantu Ratnakara. The mentioning of this drug is not found in any of the other classical Ayurvedic text books. It is popularly known as Karinjotta in Kerala. The drug Karinjotta had been mentioned in Van Reed's Hortus Malabaricus along with its medicinal uses. Its leaves are used in cold, fever & erysipelas. The oil prepared from fruit cures cholera & diseases of joints. The drug had been used extensively in folklore practice for many diseases like skin diseases, inflammatory disorders, fever, cough,joint disorders etc. In traditional practice the leaves of Karinjotta is used in the preparation of ‘Vethuvellam' (a medicated water used for puerperal women) and also leaves are used in the preparation of Ilakizhi (a traditional preparation in Kerala prepared with leaves of drugs having pain-relieving property). All these signifies the usage of drug in relieving pain. The drug Guchakaranja is botanically correlated as Quassia indica Gaertn (Samadera indica Gaertn) belonging to the family Simaroubaceae commonly known as Niepa bark tree. The studies of this drug were not available using an Ayurvedic formulation. So an experimental study is essential for validating the properties mentioned in Nighantus Hortus Malabaricus and the traditional uses. Hence the analgesic activity of the Guchakaranja was evaluated using Hotplate method. For that 30 male Wistar albino rats were used, they were divided into 5 groups of 6 rats each. On analysis the result obtained was stastically significant with P < 0.01, which showed the drug have significant analgesic activity