The word tincture is derived from the Latin word tinctura which means 'dyeing’. It was used during the early 17th century as a noun meaning 'imparted quality', like to a tint imparted by a dye.
The present
times shows the era of emerging and re-emerging diseases, with the modern
system of medicine offering limited scope of treatment. Homeopathy can be
looked upon as an alternative to the suffering patients and has been leading
more number of patients every year aware about the homeopathic treatment.
Homeopathy being based upon prescribing on the basis of symptoms becomes a
suitable choice for patients to opt in cases of these newly emerging diseases.
The
homeopathic prescribing can classified ranging from the known homeopathic
dilutions to the Mother tinctures & Solutions. Homeopathic mother tinctures
apart from serving as one of the base for preparation of subsequent potencies
have been also used by number of homeopathic physician world over for treating
all kinds of complaints including skin, respiratory, gastrointestinal, renal
etc.
Mother
tinctures refers to the alcoholic or Hydroalcoholic solutions prepared by
treating the drug substance with alcohol or water according to the standard
procedures mentioned in the Homoeopathic pharmacopieas.
Mother
tincture contains the soluble part of the drug.
Mother
tinctures are denoted by the symbol Ø.
In
Homeopathis pharmacies Mother tinctures serves as one of the base or foundation
stone from which the subsequent attenuated potencies are prepared (others being
mother solutions and Mother substances).
Mother
tinctures are prepared for the drug substances which are soluble in alcohol.
For substances soluble in water mother solutions and for insoluble substances
trituration are the standard method.
Preparation
of Mother Tinctures
Preparation
of mother tinctures can be divided into the old method as given by Dr Hahnemann
and the new Modern method.
Old
method of prepartion of Mother tincture
Dr
Hahnemann mentions about the method of preparation of mother tinctures in the Organon
of medicine, Sixth Edition in Aphorism
267-268 for the drugs soluble in alcohol.
Substances
belonging to the animal and vegetable kingdoms possess their medicinal qualities
most perfectly in their raw state.1
1 All crude animal and vegetable substances
have a greater or less amount of medicinal power, and are capable of altering
man's health, each in its own peculiar way. Those plants and animals used by
the most enlightened nations as food have this advantage over all others, that
they contain a larger amount of nutritious constituents; and they differ from
the others in this that their medicinal powers in their raw state are either
not very great in themselves, or are diminished by the culinary processes they
are subjected to in cooking for domestic use, by the expression of the
pernicious juice (like the cassava root of South America), by fermentation (of
the rye-flour in the dough for making bread, sour-crout prepared without
vinegar and pickled gherkins), by smoking and by the action of heat (in
boiling, stewing, toasting, roasting, baking), whereby the medicinal parts of
many of these substances are in part destroyed and dissipated. By the addition
of salt (pickling) and vinegar (sauces, salads) animal and vegetable substances
certainly lose much of their injurious medicinal qualities, but other
disadvantages result from these additions.
But even
those plants that possess most medicinal power lose that in part or completely
by such processes. By perfect desiccation all the roots of the various kinds of
iris, of the horseradish, of the different species or arum and the peonies lose
almost all their medicinal virtue. The juice of the most virulent plants often
becomes inert, pitch-like mass, from the heat employed in preparing the
ordinary extracts. By merely standing a long time, the expressed juice of the
most deadly plants becomes quite powerless; even at moderate atmospheric
temperature it rapidly takes on the vinous fermentation (and thereby loses much
of its medicinal power), and immediately thereafter the acetous and putrid
fermentation, whereby it is deprived of all peculiar medicinal properties; the
fecula that is then deposited, if well washed, is quite innocuous, like
ordinary starch. By the transudation that takes place when a number of green
plants are laid one above the other, the greatest part of their medicinal
properties is lost.
We gain
possession of the powers of indigenous plants and of such as may be had in a
fresh state in the most complete and certain manner by mixing their freshly
expressed juice immediately with equal parts of spirits of wine of a strength
sufficient to burn in a lamp. After this has stood a day and a night in a close
stoppered bottle and deposited the fibrinous and albuminous matters, the clear
superincumbent fluid is then to be decanted off for medicinal use.1 All fermentation of the vegetable juice
will be at once checked by the spirits of wine mixed with it and rendered
impossible for the future, and the entire medicinal power of the vegetable
juice is thus retained (perfect and uninjured) for ever by keeping the
preparation in well-corked bottles and excluded from the sun's light.2
1 Buchholz (Taschenb. f. Scheidek. u. Apoth.
a. d. J., 1815, Weimar, Abth. I, vi) assures his readers (and his reviewer in
the Leipziger Literaturzeitung, 1816, No. 82, does not contradict him) that for
this excellent mode of operating medicines we have to thank the campaign in
Russia, whence it was (in 1812) imported into Germany. According to the noble
practice of many Germans to be unjust towards their own countrymen, he conceals
the fact that this discovery and those directions, which he quotes in my very
words from the first edition of the Organon of Rational Medicine, § 230 and
note, proceed from me, and that I first published them to the world two years
before the Russian campaign (the Organon appeared in 1810). Some folks would
rather assign the origin of a discovery to the deserts of Asia than to a German
to whom the honor belongs. O tempora! O mores!
Alcohol
has certainly been sometimes before this used for mixing with vegetable juices,
e.g., to preserve them some time before making extracts of them, but never with
the view of administering them in this form.
2 Although equal parts of alcohol and
freshly expressed juice are usually the most suitable proportion for affecting
the deposition of the fibrinous and albuminous matters, yet for plants that
contain much thick mucus (e.g. Symphytum officinale, Viola tricolor, etc.), or
an excess of albumen (e.g., Aethusa cynapium, Solanum nigrum, etc.), a double
proportion of alcohol is generally required for this object. Plants that are
very deficient in juice, as Oleander, Buxus, Taxus, Ledum, Sabina, etc., must
first be pounded up alone into a moist, fine mass and the stirred up with a
double quantity of alcohol, in order that the juice may combine with it, and
being thus extracted by the alcohol, may be pressed out; these latter may also
when dried be brought with milk-sugar to the millionfold trituration, and then
be further diluted and potentized (v. § 271)
The
other exotic plants, barks, seeds and roots that cannot be obtained in the
fresh state the sensible practitioner will never take in the pulverized form on
trust, but will first convince himself of their genuineness in their crude,
entire state before making any employment of them.1
1 In order to preserve them in the form of
powder, a precaution is requisite that has hitherto been usually neglected by
druggists, and hence powders, even of well-dried animal and vegetable
substances could not be preserved uninjured even in well-corked bottles. The
entire crude vegetable substances, though perfectly dry, yet contain, as an
indispensable condition of the cohesion of their texture, a certain quantity of
moisture, which dose not indeed prevent the unpulverized drug from remaining in
as dry a state as is requisite to preserve it from corruption, but which is
quite too much for the finely pulverized state. The animal or vegetable
substance which in its entire state was perfectly dry, furnishes, therefore,
when finely pulverized, a somewhat moist powder, which without rapidly becoming
spoilt and mouldy, can yet not be preserved in corked bottles if not previously
freed from this superfluous moisture. This is the best effected by spreading
out the powder in a flat tin saucer with a raised edge, which floats in a
vessel full of boiling water (i.e. a water-bath), and, by means of stirring it
about, drying it to such a degree that all the small atoms of it (no longer
stick together in lumps, but) like dry, fine sand, are easily separated from
each other, and are readily converted into dust. In this dry state the fine
powders may be kept forever uninjured in well-corked and sealed bottles, in all
their original complete medicinal power, without ever being injured by mites or
mould; and they are best preserved when the bottles are kept protected from the
daylight (in covered boxes, chests, cases). If not shut up in air-tight
vessels, and not preserved from the access of the light of the sun and day, all
animal and vegetable substances in time gradually lose their medicinal power
more and more, even in the entire state, but still more in the form of powder.
Classes
of preparation of Mother Tinctures
Dr
Samuel hahnemann divided the process of preparation of mother tinctures into
class I, II, III and IV depending upon the sources, solubility and moisture
content of the drug substances.
CLASS
I
The
plants under class I are the most juicy plants. The tinctures of these plants
are prepared by mixing equal parts by weight of the drug juice and alcohol. The
drug power thus becomes 1/2. Dr Hahnemann mentioned about the method of
preparation of this class under Belladonna in the Materia Medica Pura.
(Atropa Belladonna)
(The freshly expressed juice of the whole plant at the
commencement of its flowering, mixed with equal parts of alcohol.)
CLASS
II
The
plants under class II are the medium juicy plants, containing small quantity of
Juice. The tincture in this class is prepared by mixing upto two-thirds of the
weight of alcohol to the drug substance. The loss of medicinal substance during
preparation in I c.c. equals to 1/3 cc, making the drug power to be 1/2 c.c. This
method is mentioned under Thuja in the Materia Medica Pura.
(Arbor vitoe.)
(From vol. v, 2nd edit., 1826.)
(The green leaves of the Thuja occidentalis are
first bruised to a fine pulp themselves, then stirred up with two thirds of
their weight of alcohol, and the juice then expressed.)
CLASS
III
The
plants under class III are the least juicy plants. The tincture is prepared by mixing double the
quantity of strong alcohol to the medicinal substance. The loss of medicinal
substance in the process is 2/3 c.c. And loss of solvent equals 1/3 c.c. Thus
the drug power becomes 1/6 c.c. Dr Hahnemann mentioned about the method of
preparation of this class under Squilla in the Materia Medica Pura.
(Squill)
(From vol. iii, 2nd edit., 1825.)
In order to make the
solution of squill in alcohol the simplest and best mode is to cut out a fresh
piece of 100 grains weight from a very fresh squill-bulb, to pound it in a
mortar, gradually adding 100 drops of alcohol, till it becomes a fine uniform
pap, then to dilute and thoroughly mix it with 500 drops of alcohol; to allow
it to stand for some days, to decant the clear supernatant brownish tincture,
and to mix 6 drops of this 94 drops of alcohol by means of ten succussions, so
as to form the first dilution (1/100).
The observations
recorded below may be much added to; but they already suffice to enable us to
estimate and correct the employment that has hitherto been made of this root;
this I have partly done in some notes.
CLASS
IV
The
plants under class IV includes the dry plants and the fresh and dry animal
substances. The tincture is prepared by mixing five times the weight of strong
alcohol to the medicinal substance. The drug power after loss of drug substance
and vehicle is 1/10. The method is mentioned about the tmethod of preparation
of this class by Dr Hahnemann under Staphysagria and Spigelia in
the Materia Medica Pura.
(Stavesacre.)
(From vol. v, 2nd edit. 1826.)
(A drachm of the seeds of Delphinium staphisagria is
pulverised, along with an equal quantity of chalk (for the purpose of absorbing
the oil), and macerated, without heat and daily succession, for a week in 600
drops of alcohol, in order to form the tincture.)
(From vol. v, 2nd edit., 1826.)
(The tincture is made by macerating for a week,
without heat and with a daily shaking fifty grains of the powder of the whole
plant of Spigelia anthelmia in 500 drops of a alcohol.)
Modern
method of preparation of Mother Tinctures
As we
can notice above the drug power differs for each of the four classes of preparation
mentioned above. This variabilty arises due to the variable amount of moisture
content between same plant in different seasons, condition of growth,
procurement time and storage and also due to the variable amount of moisture
content in solvent. These variabilities causes great uncertainity in the
strength of the tinctures and their dilutions.
The Homoeopathic pharmacopiea of United states
(HPUS) overcomes these variabilities by
prescribing a uniform standard of 10 % drug strength for most of the medicinal
substances, known as the modern method of prepartion of drugs. According to the
modern or new method dry crude drug substance
is taken as the starting point. This method is also followed by the
Homoeopathic Pharmacopiea of India (HPI).
According
to the new method after calculating the amount of moisture contained in the
drug substance, the drug substance is subject to the process of maceration or
percolation as suited, with the required quantity of vehicle.
Maceration
Maceration
is suited in cases where the drug material requires ample time for the
extraction of the medicinal properties. It is suited to gummy and mucilagenous
substances and those having much viscid juice which do not allow alcohol to
permeate the mass readily.
The
drug substance is reduced to pulp or if not reducible in natural form and is
placed in the macerating vessel, preferably of stainless steel or glass As per
the Homoeopathic Pharmacopiea of India. The precalculated amount of drug
substance is added to cover the whole mass of the drug substance and the vessel
is kept sealed in a cool dark place away from dust, odour, heat or direct
sunlight. The whole mass is kept for a period of two weeks and agitated once
evry day. After the required period the supernatant liquid is decanted and the
residue is pressed out with a press or
piece of clean linen cloth.
The
whole fluid is measured and if less than the calculated quantity, fresh
menstrum (alcohol) is added to the mass and pressed again to make the required
volume.
Homoeopathic
Pharmacopiea of India mentions that when alcohol fails to act fully on the
mucilaginous and viscid drug substances, half the quantity of the solvent is
added to the pulp and kept for 3-7 days, after which tincture is pressed out.
The remaining mass is triturated with green glass powder and added to the
remaining vehicle, which is then pressed again.
Percolation
This
method is used for dried drugs and animal drug substances. It is relatively a
short process than maceration.
The
drug substance is reduced to powder form and placed firmly over the layer of
powdered glass/sand in the percolator. The mass is covered with filter paper
and a thin layer of powdered glass/sand. The solvent is carefully poured over
it to cover the whole mass of the drug. The lid of the percolator is closed and
allowed to stand for 24 hours or longer as suited to the nature of the drug.
The valves of the percolator are opened afterwards and the liquid is allowed to
percolate drop by drop. The process is continued till the required amount of
solvent has passed through the percolator and the last drop is received in the
receiver.
After
the collection of the last drop sufficient amount of mentrum is poured to cover
the mass in the percolator and is allowed to stand for 6 hours. After 6 hours
the cork is opened and the fluid is allowed to percolate into the receiver. The
mass is removed and pressed to extract the remaining tincture. Sufficent
quantity of menstrum can be added to make the required volume of extract.
The
mother tinctures thus prepared act as the source material for the subsequent
potencies.
The
other sources for preparation of potencies include the mother solution and
mother substances.
Mother solutions refer to the solution of the
crude chemical or mineral drug substance prepared with water or alcohol according to the standard
Homoeopathic Pharmacopieas. These come under class Dr Hahnemann mentions them
under Class V and VI of the old method of preparation. Dr Hahnemann mentions
about mother solutions under the medcine Guaiacum in the materia medica pura.
Mother
substances refers to the triturated drug substance alongwith sugar of milk.
Mother sunstance are prepared for the remaining drugs which are insoluble in
alcohol as well as water. These are mentioned in class VII, VIII, and IX
according to the old method of preparation.
Uses
of Mother tinctures
·
Mother
tinctures can be used as medicines in various kinds of ailements like from
skin, gastric, respiratory etc.
·
They
are used as a source material for preparing the higher subsequent potencies.
·
They
are used for preparation of external applications.
Mother tinctures, Mother solutions and
Mother substances forms the basic foundation of the homeopathic pharmacy from
which the potencies relating to the various scales (C, X, K, LM) are prepared and thus its genuineness and
quality is a matter of utmost importance. It is required that it is prepared
according to the standard procedures and with the finest quality raw materials
for assuring the required actions of drug’s effect on the patients.
REFERENCE:
- http://hpathy.com/pharmacology/homeopathy-pharmacy-an-introduction/
- http://www.similibis.com/tinctures/
- Banerjee, D.D>, (2006) Augmented
textbook of Homeopathic pharmacy, second edition, B Jain publishers (p)
ltd, new delhi, india
- http://hpathy.com/e-books/materia-medica-pura-samuel-hahnemann/
- http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/tincture
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