EXPERIMENTAL REVIEW

ON
PHARMACOGNOSY LAB

Dr. Abhishek Kumar

Head of Department
Department of Pharmacognosy & Phytochemistry
SHEAT College of Pharmacy, Varanasi
INTRODUCTION
There are many thousands of medicinal plants in use
throughout the world, with a tremendous range of action
and degree of potency.
Most have specific action & are known to suitable for
treating certain type of diseases. This is all due the
chemical constituents or phytoconstituents present in
medicinal plants.
Why use plants?
Now is an appropriate time to intensify efforts in the
identification of new drugs from plants.
Two main approaches seem valid:
To build upon the leads provided by folk medicine and
herbals.
To under take a larger , more widespread screening.
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
According to an estimate of World Health Organization
(WHO) around 85-90% of the world’s population consumes
traditional medicines.

Most of the accidental misuse of herbal medicine starts with

wrong identification of a medicinal plant prescribed.

The traditional system has many records where one common

vernacular is supplied in place of two or more entirely
different species. The second major reason for accidental
misuse of herbal medicine is the non-characterization of
chemical constituents of the controversial plant.
The goal of pharmacognosy is to assess the value of raw
materials.

A strict standardization procedure and pharmacognostical

studies of medicinal plants would drastically reduce the
majority of accidents in wrong prescription of traditional
herbal medicine.

World Health Organization (WHO) has developed several

guidelines for carrying out standardization procedure of raw
herbal products, which basically include
pharmacognostical method
physico-chemical method
pharmacological methods and
toxicological method
Further, phytochemical screening has evolved as a major
branch of pharmacognosy in developing markers for the
purpose of identification and standardization.

METHODOLOGY
I. AUTENTIFICATION OF SAMPLE
II.PHARMACOGNOSTICAL STUDIES
A. Preliminary Pharmacognostic Characteristics
Macroscopic Characteristic
Morphological Characteristics
Organoleptic Characteristics

Microscopic Characteristics
Surface Preparation(Only for Leaf)
Transverse Section
B. Standardization
Foreign Matter
Extractive Values
Loss on Drying (LOD)
Determination of Ash Values
Determination of Foreign matter
Fluorescence Analysis of the Drug:
Determination of Microbial contamination of crude
parts of the Drug
III.EXTRACTION OF PLANT PARTS WITH DIFFERENT
SOLVENTS

The plant material may be subjected to preliminary

phytochemical screening to detect the various plant
constituents on the following lines.

Successive solvent extraction.

Qualitative chemical examination.

In successive solvent extraction, extract the air dried

powered plant material (50-100g), successively with the
solvents of increasing polarity in a soxhlet extractor.
PROPERTIES OF COMMON SOLVENTS USED FOR EXTRACTION
SOLVENTS POLARITY BOILING POINT SOLUBILITY IN WATER
(Degree Celsius) (% w/w)
Hexane 0.0 69 0.001
Heptane 0.0 98 0.0003
Pentane 0.0 36 0.004
Carbon tetrachloride 1.6 77 0.08
Benzene 2.7 80 0.18
n-Butanol 3.9 118 7.81
Butyl acetate 4.0 125 0.43
Chloroform 4.1 61 0.185
Ethyl acetate 4.4 77 8.7
Acetone 5.1 56 100
Methanol 5.1 65 100
Ethanol 5.2 78 100
Acetic acid 6.2 188 100
Water 9.0 100 100
IV. PHYTOCHEMICAL SCREENING OF EXTRACTS OF
PLANT PARTS

V. PHARMACOLICAL SCREENING OF EXTRACTS

VI.SEPARATION OF BIOACTIVE COMPOUNDS BY

CHROMATOGRAPHIC TECHNIQUE (THIN LAYER
CHROMATOGARPHY)

VII.CHARACTERISATION OF SEPARATED
COMPOUNDS