ABSTRACT
World Health Organization provides guidelines for prevention, control, safety, and efficacy as well as evaluation and standardization of herbal materials. Standardization involves adjusting the herbal drug preparation to a defined content of a constituent or a group of substances with known therapeutic activity by adding excipients or by mixing herbal drugs or herbal drug preparations. Hyphenated chromatographic techniques are powerful tools, often used for standardization and to control the quality of both the raw material and the finished product. Thin Layer Chromatography fingerprinting is of key importance for herbal drugs made up of essential oils, resins, and gums, which are complex mixtures of constituents that no longer have any organic structure. The macroscopic identity of medicinal plants includes materials that are based on shape, size, color, surface characteristics, texture, and fracture. Microscopic identification is used to examine transverse or longitudinal sections, powder, surfaces or disintegrated tissues of crude drugs and/or herbal proprietary medicines mounted on glass slides.
