Dear Sir/Madam,

At first answer me why are you performing research on that plant?

Is it purely for some degree or purposes like that, I have no comment.

But if you are trying to validate the traditional claim of any medicinal use of that plant, then I have to comment on your project and also have to ask one question, as I am asking that particular question to all researchers working in that field.

As the traditional claim of medicinal use of any plant is NOT related with use of any solvent (ethanol, methanol etc.) extracted portion of the DRY parts of the plants, so why we are ONLY testing these solvent extracted parts only?

It is perhaps we try to JUST FOLLOW the works of the Western researchers, without involving our brain. Not only you, almost all of us doing this only.

In your case, the direct succulent extract (perhaps it is reported in ethnomedicinal use) MUST be tested for evaluation of the traditional claims along with other tests. You may test the CRUDE, SUCCULENT extracts of the plant in any herbivorous/ omnivorous animal (Rabbit etc.).

If you like, you may download and read relevant articles from my RG site.

With regards,

Take aqueous plant extract

you can make 50% hydroethanolic extract. The extract can be administered by oral gavaging needle.

Suspension can be used if there is a need to exclude ethanol. It can be gib=ven orally

there're different vehicles that can dissolve your extract such as tweens or olive oil if your extract is lipophilic in nature, If that didn't work you can suspend your extract in a solution of 0.5% Carboxymethylcellulose (CMC), be sure to shake the suspension well before administration.

Respected Professors, Thank you for your answers.

Dear Sir/Madam,

At first answer me why are you performing research on that plant?

Is it purely for some degree or purposes like that, I have no comment.

But if you are trying to validate the traditional claim of any medicinal use of that plant, then I have to comment on your project and also have to ask one question, as I am asking that particular question to all researchers working in that field.

As the traditional claim of medicinal use of any plant is NOT related with use of any solvent (ethanol, methanol etc.) extracted portion of the DRY parts of the plants, so why we are ONLY testing these solvent extracted parts only?

It is perhaps we try to JUST FOLLOW the works of the Western researchers, without involving our brain. Not only you, almost all of us doing this only.

In your case, the direct succulent extract (perhaps it is reported in ethnomedicinal use) MUST be tested for evaluation of the traditional claims along with other tests. You may test the CRUDE, SUCCULENT extracts of the plant in any herbivorous/ omnivorous animal (Rabbit etc.).

If you like, you may download and read relevant articles from my RG site.

With regards,

Dear Elavarasi,

Once you obtain the ethanolic extract of your plant. You can then dissolve it in water to get the concentration of the stock (mg/ml).

Vol of extract to administer (ml) = [desired dosage (mg/kg) x body wt of rat (kg)]/concentration of stock (mg/ml).

If you require more information, pls ask your question in our project page or send me an e-mail.

https://www.researchgate.net/project/Collaborative-Book-Project-on-Phytochemistry

Regards,

Egbuna, C.

E-mail: [email protected]

https://egbunac.com

Dear Dr. Egbuna,

Methyl alcohol is itself very toxic. Even traces of it can not be administered in any animal system.

But ethyl alcohol is not so toxic, yet it has some germicidal effect of its own.

In one of my experiment, the semisolid methanolic extract of a plant part showed good activity when diluted in methnol - water solution.

But it fail to show such effect when diluted in distilled water. It was an in vitro study.

So, change of diluent have effects on activity. This finding was published.

Thanks.

Dear Dr. Shibabrata,

Thank you for your very insightful comment. I agree with you but you know sometimes some experimental designs are excusable.

Remember we have over 400,000 species of plants with tens of thousands of phytochemicals, many yet undiscovered. Scientist have been able to elucidate about 15% of it which translates to about 60,000-70,000 species.

Again, the world is witnessing an alarming rate of diseases and there is a need to arrest this anomaly. From history, you will agree with me that the discoveries of novel phytocompounds has indeed been very helpful.

I am very wary of the toxicity issues you cited but are there no ways to purify this especially when the findings are very positive.

Let me remind you that even when such findings are positive, it will need to undergo many phases which spans upto 10 years. Many do not sail through to the final stages partly because of the reasons of cytotoxicity. Shall research stop? Certainly not. Even when it didn't, research continues from there. They can be modified until desired outcomes are guaranteed. From then, chemists thinks of total synthesis or semisynthesis to make the product commercially available and affordable to the common man.

Finally, the use of organic solvents for extraction is to increase the chances of success. Yes the solvent alone may be active which somehow makes the result invalid. But lets find out that the extract + solvent yielded positive result. We will try to find what new compoud formation did that or better ways to isolate it. The goal is not to administer solvents to animal models per say I hope you understand.

Thanks

Regards,

Egbuna, C.

Respected Professors,

Thank you very much for the answers and i got some informations from your discussions. My project proposal is to test the different phytochemicals on the disease induced rats.