Standardization of Khubazi- a fruit of Malva sylvestris Linn. – A Unani Drug

Proper identification & standardization is mandatory to ensure the therapeutic efficacy of herbal drugs used for health ailments. All single drugs and compound formulations should be standardized according to the guidelines of Pharmacopoeia to ascertain their quality standards. Physicochemical and Phytochemical Standardization is considered a prerequisite for the assessment of biological activity or determination of biological standards of the plant material. It provides the analytical characteristics which may prove to be useful in fixing the physicochemical standard for the Unani drugs. Unani Medicine possesses a large number of drugs used in various diseases as mentioned by eminent Unani Physicians based on their own long term experience. But, a doubt always remains regarding the standardization of Unani drugs. Present study was done with an aim to standardize and to assure the quality of an important Unani drug Khubazi (Malva sylvestris Linn.) used for various upper respiratory tract infectious diseases. Khubazi (Malva sylvestris L.) belong to the family Malvaceae, its fruits are used in respiratory diseases such as asthma, cough, diphtheria, chronic bronchitis, sore-throat, coryza. An effort has been made to carry out the physicochemical and phytochemical studies of Khubazi. Physicochemical parameters as Extractive Values in different solvents: petroleum ether (3.56%), di-ethyl ether (0.75%), chloroform (2.08%), acetone (0.85%), ethanolic (3.80%), aqueous (11.72%); Solubility: Water (6.46 %) & Alcohol (0.97 %); Moisture content (2.56 %), Total Ash values (14.15%), pH of 1% (6.94) & 10% solution (7.2) and loss on drying (3.84%). Phytochemical Analysis revealed the presence of almost all the phyto-constituents in the test drug sample i.e. alkaloid, flavonoids, glycoside, carbohydrate, tannin, protein, amino acids, starch and resins.