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EXTRACTION TECHNOLOGIES FOR MEDICINAL AND AROMATIC PLANTS
6 Aqueous Alcoholic Extraction of Medicinal
and Aromatic Plants by Fermentation
Abstract
C. K. Katiyar
The history of the development of pharmaceutical dosage forms can be traced back to
the Vedic era. It provides insight into the innovations made during ancient times when
the crude herbs were initially used in powder form and later on they were used as decoctions,
self-fermented products, paste, pills and other advanced dosage forms. New
drug development involves the search for novel and new pharmacophores. Combinatorial
chemistry cannot solve the problem in a satisfactory manner nor can the reductionist
approach be applied to medicinal plants. Asava arishta, a fermented Ayurvedic
product, is a good source of novel pharmacophores for new drug discovery.
6.1 Introduction
The history of development of pharmaceutical dosage forms
can be traced back to Charak Samhita, the fi rst systematic documentation
of Ayurveda. Ayurveda has recommended a comprehensive Materia Medica
including medicinal plants, minerals, metals, and products of marine and
animal origin. However, the use of herbs has been given priority.
Medicinal plants have been used for therapeutic purposes for
centuries. Initially, these were used in fresh or dried powder form, which
caused the problems of high dose, high volume and low shelf life. This led
to the development of extraction processes. Extracts were found to be more
useful as the necessary dose was less, the volume was low and shelf life was
higher. Initially the solvents used for extraction were either water or alcohol, or
their mixture. This evolutionary phase is continuing even today where solvents
of all kinds of polarity are tried and extraction technologies have evolved from
simple water decoction centuries ago to supercritical extraction. While this is
true for some streams of products, Ayurveda did not exactly follow the same
route but adopted a sui generis system of innovation.
6.2 Ayurvedic Dosage Forms
During ancient times, various dosage forms were developed.
The number of dosage forms that developed over time is given below:
Charak Samhita (12 th century BC)
Sushruta Samhita (10 th century BC)
Ashtanga Hridaya (6 th century AD)
128 dosage forms
129 dosage forms
90 dosage forms
107