Just Herbs | Herbs As Raw Materials

The term ‘herb’ is used for non-woody plants and especially those plants that come from trees and shrubs. The term herb has been originated from the Latin word ‘herba’ and an old French term ‘herbe’. Nowadays, for any part of the plant like flower, seed, bark, stem, fruits, leaf, stigma, roots, and non-woody plants, the herb is used. Just herbs are used in various industries like food, perfumes, flavonoid, and medicines. The medicinal use of various plants has already been used from ancient times and in the development of traditional medicinal systems like the Ayurveda system, and the Unani system, herbal products were used regularly. The traditional medicine system uses increased because of the increasing population, inappropriate drug supply, side effects of the many drugs, and the development of resistance to the particular disease if the drug is taken for a longer duration. Hence, these are the reasons why the dependency on herbal medicine is increased as a source of medicine mainly for humans. So, in this article, I will give you complete information about just herbs as well as herbs as raw materials.

Just Herbs

Source Of Herbs

From earlier times there are many diseases that have already been cured by the use of herbal products. In traditional Indian systems of medicine like Ayurveda, Siddha, and Unani systems, plants and other natural substances have already been used from the ages.

The flowering plants range from 200,000 to 250,000, related to 10,500 genera. These genera are further divided into families of plants like Solanaceae, Papaveraceae, Apocynacear, Compositeae, Rutaceae, Gramineae, Liliaceae, and much more.

When the drugs obtained from plant sources are analyzed then it is obtained that many drugs are derived from seed-bearing plants such as spermatophytes, and in which angiosperms produced many useful medicinal plants as compared to the gymnosperms.

Gymnosperms contain various resins, oils, and alkaloids.

In the angiosperms, monocotyledons and dicotyledons produce (cinchona, rauwolfia, ipecac, vinca, and belladonna) various useful drugs.

Sometimes the whole plants as well as any part of the plants are very beneficial which is called crude drugs.

Hence, the part of the plant which contains the maximum active constituents is selected for marketing purposes.

Selection, Identification, And Authentication Of Herbal Materials

The selection of herbal materials depends upon their characteristics, safety, efficacy as well as quality. If the initial herbal material is defined in a detailed manner that may assure the quality of herbal medicines.

Many preparations affect the quality of herbal materials or medicines like drying, harvesting, transportation, storage, and processing.

Proper identification of herbal materials is a very important step and desired quality shows that there is not any adulteration or substitution of the herbal medicines.

For the quality of the herbs, the environmental conditions are also very important factors under which the herbs are grown. So, the duration of the growing season, temperature, moisture content, and soil fertility are very important factors.

1) Collection and production of medicinal plants are required for detailed information.

Examples – Seed selection, cultivation condition, harvesting.

For developing comprehensive specifications, it is very important to evaluate the botanical as well as phytochemical aspects of the medicinal plants, the manufacturing of herbal preparations, and the finished herbal products.

2) As per the binomial system, the family and the botanical name of the plants should be used (like genus, and species). The addition of therapeutic use and the vernacular name of the plant is important for the country as well as the region of the plant's origin.

3) Other details of plant source are also important like the origin country or the region of the plant, whether it is cultivated from the wild or as per the WHO GMP, plant cultivation method, condition and dates of the harvesting, and the procedure of collection, area, the pesticide application date. All this information should be provided as per the WHO guideline for good agricultural practices.

4) It is very important to mention that either the whole plant or only part of the plant is used, and if only part of the plant is used then it is to be mentioned which part is used along with its state that is whether it is dried or not.

5) With the help of a microscope the material of the plant should be described.

6) When required, identification tests should be performed like TLC and chromatographic fingerprint for the known active drug ingredients, and these tests should be performed concerning the reference sample.

7) The detailed assay of active constituents should be mentioned. Limit tests should also be performed such as ash value, the dry residue of liquids, moisture content, and loss of drying.

8) The pesticide contamination should also be determined that may occur in the herbal materials or preparations. It is important to note the acceptable limit of such pesticide contamination for herbal materials as well as herbal preparations that are used for the manufacturing of herbal medicines.

9) During herbal preparations the following tests should also be performed as contaminants, toxic metals, foreign materials, and adulterants.

10) Fungal and microbial contamination tests, mycotoxins, pest infections, radioactivity as well as their acceptable limit should also be performed.

11) While preparing the herbal products, a few tests like the particle size, swelling index, and residue solvents in the herbal preparation should also be performed.

12) If there are requirements of uniformity of weight, hardness, friability, viscosity, disintegration time, and dissolution should also be performed. Physical appearance, water content, and loss of drying should also be important factors to be studied.

13) The qualitative determination of the relative substances of the plants and tests for identity should be performed.

14) By using the relevant analytical methods, the actual quantification of active ingredients should also be performed.

15) For determining the residue solvents, limit tests should be performed.

Some Important Terms Related To Herbal Medicine

Herbs

Herbs are the material of crude plants such as leaves, flowers, stems, seeds, fruits, roots, barks, wood, rhizomes, or another part of the plants that may either be whole or in powdered form.

Herbal Materials

It contains either a complete plant or any part of the medicinal plants in the crude form like herbs, gums, essential oils, resins as well as dry powder of herbs. In few cases, the herbal materials are obtained by doing local procedures like steaming, roasting, stirring, and baking with honey.

Herbal Medicines

Herbal medicines are mainly herbs, herbal materials, different herbal preparations as well finished herbal products.

Herbal Preparations

Herbal preparations are the finished products like extracts, tinctures, powdered material, fixed oils as well as herbal materials extrudes. These preparations are obtained by distillation, extractions, and expression.

Finished Herbal Products

These medicinal products contain herbal drug preparations as an active ingredient. They may contain herbal preparations made from one or more herbs so, it is also called mixed herbal products.

Medicinal Plants

These plants are grown wildly as well as cultivated and are used for medicinal purposes.

Herbal Medicinal Products

The herbal medicinal products contain either one or more medicinal substances, herbal preparations as well as a combination of both active drug substances.

Herbal Remedies

Herbal remedies are used for therapeutic purposes. The basic difference between herbal remedies and medicinal products is that these are subjected to drug regulations.

I hope you have liked the article just herbs. In this article, I have given you the basic information about how the uses of herbs as raw materials. If you have any point please ask in comment.