Pharmacognostical and Pharmacological Evaluation Of A Potent Herb Orthosiphon Pallidus Royle

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore the pharmacognostic and pharmacological activities of Orthosiphon pallidus. The fresh whole plant was extracted with ethanolic, aqueous and hydro-alcoholic solvents using a Soxhlet extractor for 8 hours at 55 600C. The ash value, acid insoluble ash value and water soluble ash value of powdered drug were found to be 7.5±1.25%, 0.15±0.28% and 6.8±0.95% respectively. The moisture content was found to be 6.2±1.72%, which is within the pharmacopeial limit for herbal drug. The water soluble extractive and alcohol soluble extractive value was found to be 2.6±1.04% and 9.4±1.57% respectively, which clearly states that the chemical constituents of O. pallidus are more alcohol soluble. The phytochemical investigation results indicate that ethanolic extract, aqueous extract and hydro-alcoholic extract contained carbohydrate, glycosides, tannins and flavonoids. GC-MS analysis showed five major prevailing phytocompounds in hydroalcoholic (50:50), ethanolic and aqueous extract of O. pallidus. The hydroalcoholic extract showed that all these compounds were present in higher concentration as compared to other two extracts. The hydroalcoholic extract of O. pallidus showed higher content of phenolic components up to 728.86 mg/g as compared to ethanolic and aqueous extracts. The hydroalcoholic extract of O. pallidus showed higher proportion of flavonoidal content 735.86 mg/g and 78.23 mg/g of quercitin as compared to other two extracts. The three extracts of O. pallidus underwent the antioxidant and antimicrobial activity, the employed method to quantify proton radical scavenging properties. The findings of various methods for antioxidant activity and agar well diffusion method for antimicrobial activity exhibited that hydroalcoholic extract showed highest activity. The acute toxicity study revealed that all the three extracts of the plant O. pallidus did not show any mortality up to a dose of 5000 mg/kg which was taken as the end point dose till the completion of 24 hours. The antiprolifera