Objective: To evaluate realgar suspension’s toxicity and to find out the relationship between the content of soluble arsenic

valence arsenic of realgar suspension come from different batches and the acute toxicity in mice by observing mice’s intoxication reaction and mortality after single-dose intragastric administration with the realgar suspensions. Method: The content of total arsenic

soluble arsenic and valence arsenic from 3 different batches of realgar suspension were tested. The maximum dose level was determined according to the results of preliminary test. Toxicity experiment was designed with ig dose proportion of 0.85.Mice’s intoxication reaction and mortality were observed after administration for 14 days

LD50 and 95% confidence interval were obtained by SPSS software. Result: The total arsenic content of 3 different batches of realgar suspension was 95.5%

96.0% and 94.8% respectively

soluble arsenic content was 3.32%

5.23% and 6.73% respectively

valence arsenic content was 1.39%

3.26% and 4.36% respectively. LD50 obtained from different batches was 2.069 g ·kg-1

1.319 g ·kg-1 and 1.100 g ·kg-1 respectively. When doubled dosage of LD50 was ig applied

the mice were all dead. Conclusion: The experiment shows that the toxicity of realgar exists in the water soluble components. Soluble arsenic and valence arsenic have strong negative correlation with LD50

which means the higher the content of soluble arsenic and valence arsenic

the higher the toxicity of realgar suspension

while LD50 doesn’t correlate well with total arsenic content.