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Aromatic waters & Tinctures: Monophasic liquid dosage forms



AROMATIC WATERS

Aromatic waters are the saturated solutions of volatile oils or other aromatic substances.
 
Methods of preparation of aromatic waters:

  • Distillation:
Crude drug/material is placed in sufficient amount of purified water in flask. After heating water forms a steam which is condensed to obtain a condensate which contain aromatic principles. This method is expensive, tedious and time consuming.

Examples: Orange flower water NF, Strong Rose water NF.

  • Solution method:
In this method, the volatile oil is shaken for 15 min with sufficient quantity (500 times) of water to make a solution. The resultant solution is kept aside for 12 hrs then filtered through wet filter paper. 
Examples: Dill water, Peppermint water, Chloroform water, Camphor water, etc.

  • Alternate solution method:
The volatile oil is mixed with an inert adsorptive material (Talc, Kieselghur, purified siliceous earth) then 1 ltr of purified water is added and agitated for 10 min. Resulting solution is filtered repeatedly until a clear filtrate is obtained. 
Aromatic waters can also be prepared by diluting 1 part of respective concentrated aromatic water with 39 parts of water. 

Examples of concentrated waters: Peppermint water, Anise water BPC, Cinnamon water BPC, Caraway water BPC, Dill water BPC.

Usage of aromatic waters: 
As vehicles, as flavoring agents and as therapeutic agents (carminatives).

Storage of aromatic waters: Aromatic waters should be stored in tightly closed, light resistant bottles to reduce/avoid volatilization and degradation of aromatic principles due to sunlight.


TINCTURES

According to Indian Pharmacopoeia, tinctures are alcoholic or hydro alcoholic solutions containing the active principles of vegetable or animal drugs.  

Usage: Emetics, cardiotonics, flavoring agents.
Examples: Orange tincture IP, Ipecacuhana tincture IP.

Compound tinctures contain more than one vegetable or animal drugs. E.g. Compound cardamom tincture.

Tinctures commonly contain 20-90% alcohol as menstruum and differs from infusions which contain 20-25% alcohol and spirits, containing volatile substances only. 

Methods of preparation of tinctures:
  • Dilution of stronger (concentrated) tinctures:
In this method tincture is diluted with suitable solvent and filtered to obtain clear product. When diluting the tincture, change in the solvent causes product to become turbid. So, the mixture is filtered. Also solubilizing agent/stabilizing agents like glycerol are mixed into the diluted tincture to solubilize the active component and to avoid its precipitation during storage.

Examples: 
Tincture of Ipecacaunha (0.1% w/v Ipecacaunha)
Tincture of Strammonium (0.025% w/v Strammonium)
Tincture of Opium (0.05% w/v Morphine)
Tincture of Hyoscyamus (0.005% w/v Hyoscyamus)

  • Maceration
While preparing a tincture by maceration technique, type of drug (organized or unorganized) must be considered.

For organized drugs: Drug is placed in whole menstruum and shaken occasionally for 7 days. Then liquid is trained and marc is pressed. This procedure is repeated several times, liquids from various stages are mixed together and filtered.

For unorganized drugs: Drug is placed in 4/5th menstruum and shaken occasionally for 2-7 days, liquid is decanted, marc is not pressed. Liquid is filtered and more menstruum is added to make up the volume.

Examples:
Tincture of orange, Compound tincture of benzoin, tincture of tolu.

  • Percolation
It consists of 3 stages:

Imbibition: In this stage crude drug is moistened with the menstruum and kept for 4 hours. This causes imbibition or penetration of solvent into cell walls of drug and swelling.

Maceration: In this stage moistened drug is kept in contact with menstruum for 24 hours. Here the menstruum gets saturated with active constituent of crude drug.

Percolation: here the solvent which is saturated with active constituent moves downward in a column and collected. In this column more solvent/ menstruum is slowly added to extract remaining soluble active constituent. 

Volume of menstruum required for percolation = volume of percolate required+ 1.5 (weight of drug) – volume of menstruum used in imbibition.

Example: 
Compound cardamom tincture (Coarse powders of cardamom seeds, caraway, cinnamon and amaranth and glycerol),
Opium tincture (opium, alcohol, water)

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