This document discusses herbs as raw materials for herbal medicines. It defines key terms like herb, herbal medicine, herbal medicinal product, and herbal drug preparation. It also outlines sources of herbs including biological, geographical, marine, and plant tissue culture. The document discusses selection, identification and authentication of herbal materials and processing of herbal raw materials which involves primary processing steps like washing, drying and specific processing techniques.

1. KOUSHIK NANDAN DUTTA
Assistant Professor
NETES Institute of Pharmaceutical Science
NEMCARE Group of Institutions
Mirza,Santipur,Kamrup,Assam
HERBS AS RAW MATERIALS

2. CONTENTS
 Herbs as raw materials:
 Definition of
 Herb
Herbal medicine
Herbal medicinal product
Herbal drug preparation
 Source of Herbs
 Selection, identification and authentication of herbal materials.
 Processing of herbal raw material

3. INTRODUCTION
 Herbs are used by the mankind since its origin on the earth, to alleviate
human illness and for the maintenance of general health.
 As per WHO, 80% of world population of the developing countries still
rely on the crude drugs and folklore medicines for their primary health
care needs.
 The interest of people in herbal medicines has increased significantly in
both developed and developing countries.

4. HERBS:-
 Herbs refer to the leafy green or flowering parts of a plant (either fresh or
dried),while spices are usually dried and produced from other parts of the plant,
including seeds,berries,bark,roots and fruits.
 The word herb is derived from the Latin word herba, which means grass, green
stalk or blades
 Depending upon the perspectives, the word herb has different meanings.
In commercial terms: Herbs gently refers the plants used for culinary
purposes.
 In horticulture: Herbs refers to herbaceous, describes the exterior of plant
In botany: Herbs refers to entire or aerial parts of small, annual or biennial,
non-woody plant.
In taxonomy: Herbs refer to above ground/aerial parts such as leaf, flower
and stem.

5. HERBAL MEDICINE
 These consist of medicinal plants or any parts of medicinal plants,
usually in unprocessed or crude forms which have medicinal value.
 They include different parts of plants like entire aerial part, roots,
rhizomes, stem, leaves, flower, fruits, seeds, bark etc.

6. WHO GUIDELINES FOR HERBAL MEDICINES
1. Herbal medicines are finished labelled medicinal product that contain active
ingredients; aerial or underground parts of plants or combination of plants,
either in crude or processed formulations.
2. Herbal medicines may include juices, gums, volatile oils, fixed oils or other
substances derived from plants.
3. Herbal medicines might possess excipients
4. Medicines possessing crude material mixed with chemically distinct substances
including isolated phytoconstituents are not termed as herbal medicines.
5. The main objectives are:
a. Provisions for recommended general test methods.
b. General limits for contamination for herbal drugs

7. HERBAL MEDICINAL PRODUCT
 Products Produced from herbs and used in medicinal purposes are
called Herbal medicinal Products
 These are defined as any medicinal product, exclusively containing one
or more active ingredients of herbal origin. In addition they may
contain excipients.
 In India there are variety of herbal medicinal products that are
produced as well as exported to other countries which play an
important contribution in country’s GDP

8. HERBAL DRUG PREPARATION
 The different types of preparations prepared for the herbs in order to enhance the
bioavailability as well as palatability are called herbal drug preparations.
 These are preparations derived from herbal drugs which are prepared by various
techniques like extraction, infusion, decoction, maceration, distillation, expression,
fractionation, purification, concentration and fermentation.
 Herbal drug preparation are available in market in the form of powders, extracts,
tinctures, fixed oils, volatile oils, resins, gums, etc.

9. HERBAL DRUG PREPARATION
TECHNIQUES

10. SOURCES OF HERBS
 Herbs are important source of therapeutically
active constituents which affect the living
organisms. The Sources of Herbs are:
Biological Source
Geographical Source
Marine Source
Plant tissue culture

11. BIOLOGICAL SOURCE
 Plants have been used in the treatment of various diseases from
ancient times.Ayurveda ,Siddha,Unani systems are based on the
use of plants & other natural substances.
 The Microbes are microscopic organism which includes viruses,
bacteria etc.These micro organisms are source of many
immunizing biological.

12. GEOGRAPHICAL SOURCE
 The two factors determine the commercial geographical sources of a
crude drug:
Suitability of the plant/drug to specific environment
The economic factors associated with the production of a drug in a
particular area.

13. MARINE SOURCE
 This is a branch of Pharmacognosy deals with
naturally occurring substances or drugs of
therapeutic value from marine sources.
Examples:- Cephalosporin,Sinularin,Asperidol

14. PLANT TISSUE CULTURE
 Plant tissue culture is in vitro cultivation of plant cell or tissue under
aseptic and controlled environmental conditions, in liquid or on
semisolid well-defined nutrient medium for the production of primary
and secondary metabolites or to regenerate plant.

15. SELECTION,IDENTIFICATION & AUTHENTICATION OF
HERBALS
 Medicinal Plant is a plant that can be utilized for one or more medicinal
purposes or as precursor for pharmaceutical semi synthesis.
 SELECTION OF HERBS:
 The species or botanical variety selected for cultivation should be the same
as specified in the official Pharmacopoeia or official document.
 In case of newly introduced medicinal plants, the variety selected for
cultivation should be identified and documented.

16. IDENTIFICATION & AUTHENTICATION
Botanical Identity: The species, subspecies, genus, variety etc
of the plant for cultivation should be verified from a
qualified botanist/Institute and recorded.
Specimens: In case of a new plant with medicinal properties
whose identity is not known, a specimen of the plant
should be submitted to a national herbarium for
identification and documented.
Seeds and other propagation materials: The suppliers of seeds
and other propagation materials should specify all the
necessary information relating to the identity, quality as
well as their breeding history.

17. PROCESSING OF HERBAL RAW MATERIAL
 AS per WHO guidelines medicinal plants or crude drugs should be
harvested and collected only when plant possess maximum amount of
therapeutically active phytoconstituents.Processing of raw material is
performed in two steps-
 Primary Processing
 Specific Processing

18. Processing of herbal raw materials involves various stages
for which the crude drugs undergo after harvesting.
Processing is classified as primary and Specific processing
which are further subcategorized as follows
Primary
processing
Specific
processing
Garbling (Dressing) Cutting/sectioning
Washing Ageing/sweating
Boiling Banking/Roasting
Leaching Boiling/streaming
Drying Stir/frying
Fumigation

19. Recent Techniques for standardization of Herbal
Drugs
 Fingerprinting and Marker compound Analysis
 TLC
 HPTLC
 HPLC
 LC-MS
 GC-MS