Scientific Exploration of Nanoparticles in “Gowri Chinthamani Chenthuram” and its Quality Control Studies

Abstract

Introduction: “Gowri Chinthamani Chenthuram” is mercury based metallic medicine of Siddha system of medicine. It is administered to treat all types of pains such as acute pain, chronic pain, neuropathic pain, nociceptive pain, radicular pain, and its therapeutic dose level is 130 mg along with honey and thirikadugu choornam.

Objectives: In the present work, three batches of the Chenthuram were procured from the same manufacturer and were subjected to quality control studies, surface characterisation studies (XRD and SEM) and elemental analysis performed using EDAX. FTIR spectroscopy was also performed to detect major functional groups present in the formulation.

Results and Discussion: Data of quality control studies revealed that the moisture content of the three samples were about 2% to 3%, the total ash level was nearly 20% and acid insoluble ash in negligible amount. These values pointeds out that the preparation was free from moisture and unwanted chemical molecules. EDAX results indicated that mercury was present in high concentration (67.09%), followed by sulphur (23.86%) and borax (9.06%). In FTIR spectroscopic studies, totally 4 peaks were found which included one single bond region and three fingerprint regions. Three batches of SEM image size ranged from 95 to 140 nm. The powder X-ray diffraction pattern of GCC revealed the existence of crystalline phase and can be indexed to the pure cubic phase of Beta-HgS. The surface area of GCC was observed to be smooth, may be due to the contribution of processes involved in manufacturing.

Conclusions: The “nano features” of GCC, a mercury based Siddha Chenthuram was also observed and the surface characteristic features were recorded.