AUTHENTICATION OF DETOXIFICATION PROCESS USED IN TRADITIONAL INDIAN MEDICINE

The dried tuberous roots of Aconite (Acconitum spp.) are used in the indigenous system of medicine. These roots contain a number of alkaloids of the diterpene class. These are easily hydrolyzable ester alkaloids of terpenoid structure, some of them being toxic having undesirable cardiac effect. The drug, before it is used as a medicine is detoxified. The detoxification is done by traditional methods, which reduce the toxicity of this drug increasing its potency.

Effort has been made in the present work to study this detoxification by chromatography. The Indian variety is studied for its alkaloidal content before and after treatment. The process is studied quantitatively by varying different parameters, Ike medium of detoxification (Viz. Cow urine, milk, Steam cooking), time of soaking the drug in the medium. The pattern of alkaloids in raw and purified roots was monitored by TLC at each step. TLC also revealed the presence of Benzoic acid which confirmed that the process involved hydrolysis of the alkaloids to their respective amino alcohols.