Therapeutic effect of Chinese patent medicine Wuhuanghu on porcine infectious pleuropneumonia and its acute and subchronic toxicity as well as evaluation of safety pharmacology

Chinese patent medicines play an important role in veterinary clinical use. The aim of this study is to research the anti-infection effect of Chinese patent medicine Wuhuanghu for the treatment of porcine infectious pleuropneumonia and to evaluate the safety of Wuhuanghu in order to provide a comprehensive understanding of its toxicity. The anti-infection results showed that the treatment with Wuhuanghu could significantly inhibit pneumonia and decrement of the pneumonia in high, medium and low doses of Wuhuanghu groups were 70.97%, 61.29% and 58.06% respectively. The acute toxicity test showed that rats in the highest group (5000 mg/kg) had no death and no abnormal response, suggesting the LD50 of Wuhuanghu was more than 5000 mg/kg. The subchronic toxicity study showed that hematology indexes in all groups had no obvious differences; blood biochemical index, only albumin and total cholesterol in middle and low doses of Wuhuanghu groups were significantly decreased when compared with control group. The clinical pathology showed that the target organ of Wuhuanghu was liver. The safety pharmacology study indicated that Wuhuanghu had no side effects on rats. In conclusion, Wuhuanghu has therapeutic and protective effects to porcine infectious pleuropneumonia in a dose-dependent manner and Wuhuanghu is a safe veterinary medicine. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.