Chemical Investigations of Some Unani Medicinal Plants

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In Unani Medicine around 2500 varieties of plants (about 1500 of them found in India alone) or their parts including leaves, fruit, roots, etc., about 150 animal products and over 100 mineral products are used. Even gold, silver and pearls are used in very small quantities in some of the medicines after their purification (detoxification) as per Unani classical methods. As Unani Medicine traveled from one part of the world to other, the practitioners of this system added numerous natural origin drugs to the system's already rich repertory. It was not easy for a physician to get the same herb in Iran or India which was mentioned by the physicians of Rome or Egypt. For example Ammi majus, an Egyptian herb famous for its use in the treatment of leucoderma, was not easily available in India till such time as Central Council for Research in Unani Medicine (CCRUM) domesticated its cultivation under controlled conditions. However, chemical studies on Heracleum candicans, which is easily available in India, have demonstrated this to be a parallel herb.

The story of chemical investigations of Unani medicinal plants goes back to the early 1930s when Salim-uz-Zaman Siddiqui at the behest of Hakim Ajmal Khan started his famous studies on Rauwolfia serpentina at Ayurvedic & Unani Tibbiya College, Delhi. The early success achieved there with Rauwolfia serpentina and Holarrhena antidysenterica created a general awareness at home and abroad about the importance of Unani literature in the study of medicinal plants. In the 1950s the scene shifted to Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh where a Department of Research in Unani Medicine was set up to undertake chemical studies on some important medicinal plants mentioned in Unani Medicine. But owing to lack of facilities much work could not be done till about 1955, when the Ministry of Health, Government of India included this department among research centres on indigenous systems of medicine which would receive financial assistance from it. It was around this time that systematic and organized research work on herbal drugs started.

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