Phytochemical Analysis of an Anti-venom Traditional Herbal Preparation for Snake-bite

Objective: Snake-bite is one of the important public health problems of tropical countries including Sri Lanka. The risk of snake-bites is higher in rural areas of the country and people mainly rely on herbal medicines. Antiserum is the only therapeutic agent in Western medicine available throughout the world. A major drawback of serum therapy is its higher cost and also serum sickness is a possible side effect of serum therapy that results in inflammation of tissues and other symptoms. In the present study, an attempt was taken to prepare a traditional herbal paste which used to treat snake-bites and carry out chemical analysis.

Methods: Chemical analysis carried out by investigation of its(a) phytochemical constituents (b) total phenol and flavonoid contents and (c) development of Thin Layer Chromatography (TLC) fingerprints.

Results: Results revealed that phenols, flavonoids, tannins and saponins were abundant in the herbal paste whereas coumarins, terpenoids and alkaloids were absent. Further high amounts of total phenols (120.30±0.83 mg gallic acid equivalents /g) and flavonoids (69.76±1.62 quercetin equivalents /g) were present in the herbal paste. TLC fingerprints were able to develop for the traditional herbal formulation and its mixture of ingredients.

Conclusion: Present study revealed the presence of phytochemicals such as phenols, flavonoids, tannins and saponins in the traditional herbal preparation.