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ABSTRACT
Myrrh is an effective anti-microbial agent that is considered an excellent external remedy for mouth, throat and skin infections and it is also useful in systematic treatment of glandular fever and brucellosis.
The purified myrrh extract has been formulated as soft gelatin capsules, suppositories and emulsion known commercially as Mirazid. Recently, Mirazid has been proved to be a safe drug of potential effects as antibilharzial and fasciolicidal agent. In this study, a simple, precise and accurate, colorimetric method for determination of crude powdered myrrh, petroleum ether extract (oily fraction) and purified myrrh extract, in soft gelatin capsules, emulsion and in suppositories, is put forward. The procedure involves reaction with vanillin-sulfuric acid reagent to form a violet colored reaction product with maximum absorption at 518 nm. Optimum conditions for color formation are reported and the color has been found to be stable for six hours. Beer's law is obeyed in a concentration range 40–200 µg/mL, with correlation coefficient of 0.9994. The mean percentage recoveries have been found to be 101.31±0.54 for soft gelatin capsule, 100.18±0.39 for suppositories and 100.14±0.41 for emulsion. No interference has been observed either from capsule shell, suppository base or emulsifying agent.
In comparison to a another colorimetric method based on the use of blue tetrazolium salt, the proposed method is more selective, in addition of being simple, of good accuracy, and high precision for determination of the major bioactive components of the oily fraction rather than resin extract. The procedure has been validated for use in quality control applications.