Abstract: 【ABSTRACT】 BACKGROUND ＆ AIM: Epimedium ,Yin-Yang-Huo, is a traditional Chinese herbal medicine, although it was listed as a food, the relative systematic toxicity and safety evaluation experiment was lacking. MATERIALS AND MATHODS: Systematic safety evaluation experiments were done using acute toxicity, cellular toxicity and genotoxicity experiments including mice bone marrow micro-nuclear test, Ames test and TK gene mutation experiment. RESULTS: LD50 was higher than 80 g/kg; IC50 in CHO and CHL cells were 55.4 and 19.53 mg/ml, respectively.All toxicity tests were negative. CONCLUSION: It was found that Herba epimedii didn't have mutagenic effects, although it had some toxic effects on the CHO and CHL cells at higher doses.

Key words: herba epimedii, acute toxicity, genotoxicity