The species Piper aduncum L., popularly known as monkey pepper, has high yielding essential oil (±3%) and high dilapiol content (80-97%). It is a plant used as an insecticide, fungicide, cercaricide and in folk medicine as a diuretic, anti-hemorrhagic, in the treatment of chronic ulcers, to combat erysipelas and effective in curing uterine prolapse. Previous studies have proven the insecticidal, fungicidal and cercaricidal activities for the essential oil of the peppercorn. The present work aims to evaluate the probable anti-inflammatory and analgesic effects of the essential oil of Piper aduncum (OEPa), to try to elucidate its mechanisms of action and associate these results with the presence of dilapiol, its major component. The analgesic activity studies were developed through the tests of abdominal contortions induced by 0.6% acetic acid (Koster et al. 1959) and hot plate (Carlini 1973). Anti-inflammatory studies were done using rat paw edema induced by dextran (0.1%) and carrageenan (1%) (Di Rosa, 1971). OEPa caused a significant reduction (p < 0.05; ANOVA) in acetic acid-induced abdominal contortions at doses of 240, 360 and 480 mglkg. However, in the hot plate test it was unable to exert analgesic activity at doses of 240, 480 and 960 mglkg. The anti-inflammatory evaluation showed that OEPa was able to inhibit the development of rat paw edema induced by carrageenan and dextran at doses of 240 and 480mglkg. Our results suggest that OEPa, at the doses used, possesses peripheral anti-inflammatory and analgesic activities.
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