Fig. 1

Clinical score of the limbs of animals in the experimental groups. The animals were monitored daily by analysis of clinical signs of arthritis as described by Brand et al. [27] using a score for severity, as follows: 0 = no evidence of erythema and swelling, 1 = erythema and mild swelling confined to the tarsals or ankle joint, 2 = erythema and mild swelling extending from the ankle to the tarsals, 3 = erythema and moderate swelling extending from the ankle to the metatarsal joints, 4 = erythema and severe swelling encompassing the ankle, foot, and digits, or ankylosis of the limb. The total score is the average of the scores of all four limbs of each animal from the onset of the disease. Each of the groups contained six animals. Each colored dot represents the trajectory of one animal during the 20 treatment days. Nonlinear statistical analysis method was used. Three factors were evaluated: asymptote (a), half-life (MED) and scale (S). The results were described by value, standard error, t-value and p-value (≤0.05) (see Table 2)