ABSTRACT
Ipomoea Pes-caprae (L.) R.Br (IP) is a valuable medicinal plant, distributed in the tropics and subtropics regions and used in folk and tribal medicines. Traditionally IP is used in inflammatory conditions such as arthritis and also used to treat pain, ulcer, cancer and wounds. The acute anti-inflammatory activity of IP has been previously reported. The present study aims to discover the anti-inflammatory effect of ethanolic extracts from aerials parts of IP by sub-acute anti-inflammatory model. Completely dried leaves and stems of I.pes-caprae were extracted using ethanol by hot percolation method. The EELIP & EESIP (Ethanolic extract of Leaves & Stems of IP) thus obtained were subjected to preliminary phytochemical analysis and revealed the presence of alkaloids, carbohydrates, glycosides, flavonoids, tannins, sterols and terpenoids both in leaf and stem extracts. The LD50 of both EELIP & EESIP were found to be >2000 mg/kg by acute oral toxicity study. Both EELIP & EESIP exhibited significant anti-inflammatory activities in dose dependent manner.