Chemical and Microscopic Standardization of Poly-Herbal Unani Drug Sufoof-E-Hazim

The use of herbal drugs for health care has increased tremendously during the past few decades. The medicines in Unani system now have a wider reach among people world over. In order to ensure the reliability and acceptability of Unani medicines there is an urgent need of developing standard operative procedures and pharmacopoeial standardization of various formulations and ingredients.

Work on pharmacopoeial standardization including SOP for its preparation has been carried out on the drug Sufoof-e-Hazim which is a powder drug of high therapeutic efficacy, used to cure flatulence of stomach and indigestion. SOP for the drug has been developed by preparing the drug on laboratory scale, using the standard ingredients and following the prescribed procedures. In order to work out the diagnostic features, the formulation was studied on the basis of pharmacopoeial parameters such as microscopy, physico-chemical analysis, thin layer chromatography, level of microbial and pesticide contaminations, aflatoxins and the heavy metals.