Standardization of Amber-e-Ash-hab- A Premium Unani Marine Drug
Shoeb Ahmed Ansari, Asma Sattar Khan, M.H. Khan and Shams-ul-Arfin
Hippocratic Journal of Unani Medicine
Hippocratic Journal of Unani Medicine April - June 2015, Vol. 10 No. 2, Pages 123-128
Abstract
The current study is an attempt to standardize one of the important Unani drugs of the animal origin Amber-e-Ash-hab (Ambergris). Amber is used in various Unani formulations as it has tremendous medicinal properties and sanative effects. In some parts of Asia & Africa it was used as flavouring for food. It was also widely used in perfumery industry as a perfumery fixative; Amber is the slowest of all perfume materials to evaporate. Though it has now been substantially displaced by synthetics in perfumery industry. Amber has been used in many traditional systems of medicines for ages but due to its high cost and low availability, it is sometimes replaced by or adulterated with low quality substances. In order to check the adulteration and to make its precise identification, the drug was tested through Physico-chemical parameters, TLC, U.V. Spectroscopy etc.