Source Rutin is a flavonoid glycoside first isolated from Fagopyrum esculentum (buckwheat) in 1860 by Schunck. The most frequently occurring flavonoid glycoside it was isolated from Ruta graveolens in 1942 by A. Weiss. Since then it has been found in almost all higher plants and commercial production is made from F. esculentum (Polygonaceae), Sophora japonica (Leguminosae) and Eucalyptus macrorhyncha. Buckwheat is a pseudocereal being…
Several simple UV spectrophotometric methods of assay are available for the estimation of ephedrine in pharmaceutical formulations. A. Method I B. Method II C. Method III
Ephedrine occurs as a waxy solid or as crystalline particles. Its IUPAC name is (R*,S*)-2-(methylamino)-1-phenylpropan-1-ol and has the molecular formula C10H15NO1. It has a bitter taste, is odourless or has a slight aromatic odour. In warm weather it slowly volatilizes. The anhydrous substance melts at 36°C and the hemi-hydrate melts at 42°C. It is a…
Ephedrine Source It is the principal alkaloid of the species of Ephedra (Ephedraceae) and was first isolated from Ma Huang, one of the oldest known drugs. Identified as Ephedra vulgaris var Helvetica, Ma Huang consists of the entire plant or tops of various Ephedra species including E. sinica and E. equisetina from China, E. gerardiana, E. intermedia and E. major from India and Pakistan. The plants are small…
In India raw drugs pertaining to some 7,500 medicinal plant species are claimed to be used in traditional medical systems. Many of these drugs are used in folk medicine in contrast to the more systematic and well-validated traditional medicine such as Ayurveda and Siddha which use much lesser number of carefully selected species. It is…
Up to mid-19th century, the beginning of the era of natural products, plant-derived drugs remained structurally ill-defined. Plant active constituent isolations from crude drugs were successful when the yield was sufficient and the compounds were more amenable to the then available methods of isolations. However such isolations were not possible for most biologically active crude…
Phytochemical analysis today includes the use of sophisticated analytical instrumentation by which direct identification of phytoconstituents from fresh plant parts, extracts, exudates, essential oils, and formulations is a straight forward task. However, the complex multi constituent composition of plants makes isolation and purification their active principles, still a challenging issue. An introduction to general principles…
It is an extensively used method of column chromatography for qualitative and quantitative analysis of complex mixtures of volatile substances that can be vaporized without decomposition. It was initially proposed by Martin and Synge in 1941 and later in 1952 developed by Martin and James for the separation of volatile fatty acids. Today it is…
Chromatographic separation performed with the stationary phase packed in a column as against being planar is column chromatography. The sorbents used in CC are taken in a column and the mobile phase instead of moving up by capillary action comes down due to gravity against the resistance of the sorbent. The mixture to be fractionated…