ABSTRACT
Volatile oil is widely distributed in Chinese medicinal materials,which contains rich chemical compositions and has a variety of pharmacological activities such as anti-bacterial,anti-inflammatory,anti-oxidant,anti-tumor,transdermal absorption and antalgic activities,etc.In recent years,the research on the Chinese medicines containing volatile oil is increasing,showing a wide prospect of application in clinical medicine,health care,daily products development,etc.Volatile oil of traditional Chinese medicine has poor solubility,volatility and unstable properties.Factors such as species,harvesting seasons,extraction methods,processing technologies and storage conditions would affect the compositions and contents of volatile oil,thus directly affecting its efficacy,safety and quality stability.Hence,it is especially necessary to control the volatile oil content.The current 2015 edition of the Chinese Pharmacopoeia has made a lot of regulations on the quality control of Chinese medicines containing volatile oil,but generally does not provide the lowest and highest concentrations of volatile oil.As the volatile oil of traditional Chinese medicines has good biological activity and the quality standards are not yet perfect,this study would take the Fist Part of Chinese Pharmacopoeia 2015 Edition as the data source to determine the species of Chinese medicines containing volatile oils through literature research and pharmacopoeia description;the functions,indications,and sources of 196 kinds of traditional Chinese medicines containing volatile oil would be classified and the confusable species would be discriminated by using the Chinese pharmacy knowledge.In this study,the quality-influencing factors would be comprehensively analyzed and the content determination methods of volatile oil would be summarized to offer a reference for the development and application of Chinese medicinal materials containing volatile oil,as well as to lay the foundation for further reinforcing and improving their quality standards.
ABSTRACT
Epimedii Folium has a long history in China as a common traditional Chinese medicine. Key factors of Epimedii Folium quality were summarized based on ancient literatures, Chinese Pharmacopoeias and modern research in different period of history. The main reason for unqualified Epimedii Folium is unstable icariin. Therefore, it's suggested that: the precondition of the quality control of epimedium is to find the proper quality marker. It's suggested that the medicinal parts should be reverted to "dry whole plant overground" to solve Epimedium resource shortage problem. In addition, it is necessary to strengthen the standardized cultivation, so as to ensure germplasm, production area, and producing method to guarantee the quality of Epimedium Folium. In the drying method, it is recommended to change "dry in the sun or shade" to "dry", namely dry in the sun, shade or drier, in order to provide a new method to improve the quality control and quality standard of Epimedii Folium.