Drugs obtained from Leaves of Herbs

Drugs obtained from Leaves of Herbs

Nature gives us too much essential products. Now let you know about some drugs that are obtained from Leaves of Plants.

1. Aloe

Aloes are tropical plants with succulent leaves and showy flowers. They are frequently cultivated in greenhouses. The leaves contain a resinous juice in which there are several glucosides. If the leaves are cut and placed in troughs, the juice slowly exudes and can be collected. It is evaporated in pans to a thick, viscous black mass, which may be solidified. Aloes are used chiefly as purgatives. Several kinds of aloes are on the market. Barbados or Curaqao aloes come from Aloe barbadensis of the West Indies, Socotrine aloes from A. Perryi of East Africa, and Cape aloes from A. Ferox of South Africa. Currenly aloe used worldwide and we will tell you in detail about Aloe on another post.

2. Belladonna

This old and important drug is obtained from the dried leaves and tops and to some extent the roots, of Atropa Belladonna. This plant is a coarse perennial herb, native to Central and Southern Europe and Asia Minor. It is extensively cultivated as a drug plant in the United States, Europe and India. The leaves are collected during the flowering season and dried. They contain several alkaloids, chief among which are hyoscy amine and atropine. Atropine is used to dilate the pupil of the eye and for many other medicinal purposes.

3. Cocaine

The leaves of the coca shrub (Erythroxylon Coca), a native of Peru and Bolivia and related species furnish this drug. The plant is extensively cultivated in South America, where the leaves are used as a masticatory and also in Java, Ceylon and Formosa. The leaves mature in about four years and can then be picked three or four times a year. They are carefully dried and shipped in bales. They have a bitter aromatic taste due to the presence of the alkaloid cocaine. Cocaine has been much used as a local anesthetic. It is also employed as a tonic for the digestive and nervous systems, but as it is a habit forming drug its use should be supervised by physicians.

4. Lobelia

This drug is obtained from the dried leaves and tops of wild or cultivated plants of the Indian tobacco (Lobelia inflata), a small annual with numerous blue flowers in leafy terminal racemes. The plant is a native of North America and is one of our comparatively few poisonous species. The active principles are alkaloidal in nature. Lobelia is used as an expectorant, antispasmodic and emetic.

5. Wormwood

The wormwood (Artemisia Absinthium), a perennial species of Europe, Northern Africa and Northern Asia, is the source of an essential oil obtained by steam distillation from the dried leaves and tops of the plant. The resulting greenish liquid is used to some extent in liniments, but it is no longer official. The chief use of the essential oil is to flavour the liqueur known as absinthe, the use of which is forbidden in many countries.

6. Stramonium

The Jimson weed or thorn apple, one of the most, poisonous of plants, is the source of this drug. The plant is a native of Asia, but occurs as a weed in fields and waste places all over the world. It is a coarse, rank annual growing to a height of 4 ft. It is cultivated in the United States and Europe for the drug stramonium, which is extracted from the dried leaves and flowering tops. This drug is used as a substitute for belladonna for relaxing the bronchial muscles in the treatment of asthma.

7. Senna

This drug is obtained from the dried leaflets and also pods of several species of Cassia. Alexandrian senna comes from C. Acutifolia and India or Tinnavelly senna front C. Angushfolia. Both of them are cultivated in India. The leaves are picked by the natives, dried in the sun and baled. Senna is used as a purgative.

8. Pennyroyal

It is a small aromatic annual common in poor soil throughout the eastern United States. It contains an essential oil that has some use in internal medicine. It is often used as an ingredient of liniments because of its counteyirritant action. The oil is obtained commercially from the dried leaves and tops.

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