Date of Award:

5-1982

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Master of Science (MS)

Department:

Animal, Dairy, and Veterinary Sciences

Department name when degree awarded

Toxicology

Committee Chair(s)

R. P. Sharma

Committee

R. P. Sharma

Committee

J. L. Shupe

Committee

R. Keeler

Abstract

Cestrum parqui L'Héritier is a Solanaceous weed of wide distribution throughout the world. It causes poisoning of animals, particularly cattle and sheep, and constitutes a serious problem for animal production in some countries.

The present study was undertaken to develop a biological test for the detection of toxicity of extracts obtained from the plant. This test will be utilized to assess the toxicity of extracts obtained from the plant in future studies.

The plant is known to induce poisoning in laboratory animals, but there are no precise references on doses to be utilized and of appropriate routes of dosing. Oral tests on sheep and cattle, although reliable, are very expensive and require large amounts of the substance for which toxicity or inocuity are to be established. Young Swiss-Webster mice administered methanolic extracts of the dried plant died in less than 24 hours after subcutaneous injection of an aqueous solution of the methanolic extract equivalent to 10 g of dried plant per kg of live weight. This is the same dose that invariably induces death when administered orally to cattle and sheep. No effect was found for this dose when given orally to mice. Chloroform and water extracts derived from the methanolic extract also showed toxicity when injected in mice subcutaneously. Gross lesions seem to affect particularly the liver of the experimental animals, as it also occurs in sheep and cattle. The route of dosing, the dose utilized, and the experimental animals used were found convenient for the detection of toxicity in future research work on the poisonous principle of this plant.

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