Bulk and Surface Properties of Tin Based Herbal Drug during Its Preparation: Fingerprinting of the Active Pharmaceutical Constituent

The Tin based herbal drug (Vangaparpam a Siddha system of Medicine) has been widely used for the treatment of urinogenital infection and Arthritis. It was prepared by ten sequential stages of calcinations of the medicinally purified tin along with Aloe vera extract. In this study we analysed samples from various stages of preparation using analytical techniques viz., Fourier Transformed Infrared spectroscopy, Powder X ray Diffraction, X ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy, Energy Dispersive Xray spectroscopy , Scanning Electron Microscopy, to create fingerprints required for the optimisation of the process parameters, detection of toxic impurities and crystal morphology of the Active Pharmaceutical ingredient during the formulation of drug for which reports are not available. Upon analysis of the samples of various stages of calcinations, we found that there was a programmed heating the medicinally purified tin metal was converted to crystalline tin oxide in the tetragonal phase at the first stage of calcinations itself along with a small percentage of therapeutically important elements of Calcium, Iron, and Potassium. Further calcinations steps brought interplay of nano and sub-micro sized particles for optimum bioavailability of the drug. INTRODUCTION: The Siddha medicinal system is a unique system with its merits due to the singularity in preparation, indication of diseases, the observable therapeutic outcomes, which matches with the established allopathic counterparts . Amongst the metal-based formulations of Siddha system, Parpam is an effective calcined form of a metal and it is equivalent to ‘Bhasma’ in Ayurveda. It is prepared by the repeated incinerations of the extensively purified metal in the presence of medicinal herbs or extracts to detoxify the metal toxicity . Tin, known as ‘Vanga’ in traditional literature has demulcent and antiseptic properties. Vanga Parpam, the drug considered in the present study was prepared by trituration of the medicinally purified metallic tin followed by repeated calcinations. The resultant product was the oxide form of tin metal, which is widely used in the treatment of urino genital infections and dyspepsia , diabetes, asthma, arthritis, gonorrhoea, blood disorders 4 with a dosage of 65 to 130mg/day for seven consecutive days when taken along with an adjuvant such as honey, milk or ghee. As there is no extensive report available on the exact chemical nature of the process and the products obtained at each calcinations step, our study aimed at the preparation of the drug by following the methods given in Siddha literature 5 and analysis of each step of the calcinations by analytical techniques.