Proximate Analysis of Centella asiatica

Abstract

Natural products have traditionally provided most of the traditional drugs in use. Despite the achievement of synthetic organic chemistry and advances towards rational drug design system, natural products continue to be the most essential in providing medicinal compounds and as starting points for the development of synthetic analogous. With the increasing power of screening programme and increasing interests in the reservoir of untested natural products, many future drug developments will be based on natural products. The aim of the present work is to carry out proximate analysis of leaves of Centella asiatica. They shows presence of 0.84% foreign organic matter, 9.03% ethanol soluble extractives, 17.20% water soluble extractives, 10.50% total ash, 5.30% Acid insoluble ash, 10.45% loss on drying and 6.10% moisture content.