Ethnobotany, ethnomedicine, ethnopharmacology etc. all depend upon the traditional use of plant/plant parts at medicinal and other related purpose by the so called ethnic people. The obtained such knowledge from their ancestors. Presently we are validating such claims with the tools and knowledge base presently available. Can we say the claims are false or not true if we can not find any effect by our present way of validation which only covers the study of effects of extracted material of dry plant parts only? According to Charak Samhita, five type of extracts can be prepared from any plant part which are having different grade of actions. Presently we make extract from dry plant part by use of different solvents and study the efficacy of the solvent extracts on different models. Is it a complete, foolproof study? We can also study the medicinal plant parts at fresh condition just after collection from the living plant, as they are used by the ethnic people more or less in this form.
Yes, we can use fresh plant material for this purpose. there are many research groups which use different plant parts collected at different stages of development for the evaluation of their ethanopharmacological evaluation. in some cases it is difficult to use the fresh sample due to lack of facilities and also due to many other reasons (distance between Lab and collection site) . Also, working with dry sample is easy as compare to fresh sample as dry sample can be preserved for long period of time and their handling is also easy. Further, in case of volatile compounds we have to use fresh plant material otherwise, these compounds may deteriorate with passage of time.
Because easiest method to find active components is solvent extraction, whole plants or plant parts are also used for ethnomedicinal purposes. Ethnomedicine is a very different aspect, it is coordinated with human believe and believe in medicine. Most of these medicine are traditional and are known to people which have no idea about allopathy treatment. water solution is best solution to find toxicity and any activity, it is much workable because common man has no other facility. A hot soup or concoction of any plant part is used to treat disease. Rituals, culture and tradition have great role in ethnomedicines.
we can't say the claims are false or not true easily. seldom we can imagine traditional condition , exactly. in the post , treatment was based on easier and cheaper methods which was adapted with common people, therefore we saw water and oil solution
Dear Shihabrata: There is no way, the secondary metabolites have to be extracted with solvents from different polarities starting from less polarity to up, i.e. Hexane, ethyl acetate, methanol, and water if you want, and you can not use fresh material, at less you want to get essential oíls.
Dear Dr. Olga Lock,
I suppose to present some new idea within next two months. The article is under peer review process of a journal. Still the we have to wait.
Thank you for your response.
Dear sahibrata
Yes always in dry conditions
natural products are always discriminatory in their action. Hence to validate it is necessary to study at conditions .
every stages of growth of medicinal plants give depth of activity. Secondary metabolites always active in wet conditions effectively changing its characteristics as per geographical conditions. Hence at particular conditions need to seaze activity of bio active compounds hence it is necessary to use organic solvents & it is to be depends on polarity & covalent bonding solvents plays vital role for extractio.That are showing different polymorphism in solvents.
if you required more information following is my id pl fill free to contact me
Following article can say something.
http://www.animalmedicalresearch.org/Vol.6_Issue1_June_2016/Shibabrata%20Pattanayak.pdf
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