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2.4 Adhatoda Species
2.4.1 Ethnopharmacological Properties and Phytochemistry
Adhatoda vasica syn. Justicia adhatoda syn. Adhatoda zeylanica (Medic.) (Fam. – Acanthaceae) is a medicinal plant native to Asia, widely used in Siddha, Ayurvedic, and Unani systems of medicine as well as in homeopathy. The plant genus is distributed in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Malaysia, China, and Panama. Leaf infusion is considered as an excellent agent for the eradication of white ants, flies, and mosquitoes and used to relieve to headache (Gamble 1902; Jayaweera 1981; Khursheed et al. 2010). The boiled leaf extract along with fruit powder of Phyllanthus emblica, mixed with honey, is used in asthma treatment (Khan and Yadava 2010). The fresh leaf juice is added to honey and ginger juice and used as remedy for cough, chronic bronchitis, and asthma (Ahmed et al. 2007). Leaf juice is prescribed in malarial fever (Manandhar 1991). Bruised fresh leaves are used to treat snake bites (Roberts 1931). Paste is prepared from fresh root and is applied on the abdomen and vagina, minutes before childbirth for easy delivery (Hussain and Hore 2007). The root is useful as an expectorant and antispasmodic, and the infusion is used as an anthelmintic. Fresh flowers are used in high fever and gonorrhea (Ahmad and Javed 2007). The leaves and flowers possess expectorant and anti-asthmatic properties (Malhotra 1996). The fruits are recommended for the relief from cold, antispasmodic, and bronchitis (Atta et al. 1986).
The phytochemical analysis revealed that phenols, tannins, alkaloids, anthraquinone, saponins, flavonoids were present in the J. adhatoda (Pathak 1970). It contains bitter quinazoline alkaloid as vasicine, vasicinone, 2-aminobenzylamine (Wasserman and Kuo 1991; Amine and Mehta 1959; Suthar et al. 2009), vasicinol, adhatodine, adhatonine, adhvasinone, anisotine and hydroxypeganine, 2-acetylbenzylamine (Lahiri and Prahdan 1964; Ignacimuthus and Shanmugam 2010), and vasicoline (Joshi et al. 1996; Ahmad et al. 2009). The 1,2,3,9-tetrahydro-5-methoxypyrrol[2,1-b]quinazolin-3-ol, vasicinolone, and deoxyvasicinone were characterized from the leaves of A. vasica (Potewar et al. 2008; Bhatt et al. 2010). The roots also contain vasicinal, vasicinone and adhatonine, daucosterol, adhavasine, vasicol, vasicoline, vasicolinone (Ahmad et al. 2009; Singh et al. 2011). The presence of α-amyrin, apigenin, astragalin, kaempferol, quercetin, neoandrographolide, vitexin, and alkanes were confirmed in the flowers of A. vasica (Haq et al. 1967; Al-Amin et al. 2012). Pharmacologically and biologically the Adhatoda species has antibacterial (Shahwar et al. 2012) and anti-inflammatory activities (Chakraborty and Brantner 2001; Dhankhar et al. 2011; Singh and Sharma 2013). The 3α-hydroxyoleanane-5-ene and taraxerone from aerial parts (Sultana et al. 2005; Singh et al. 2011), desmethoxyaniflorine, 7-methoxyvasicinone (Thappa et al. 1996), anisotine, 3-hydroxyanisotine, vasnetine, vasicolinone, and vasicol have been isolated from the leaves of A. vasica (Joshi et al. 1994; Singh et al. 2015). The 3α-hydroxy-D-friedoolean-5-ene, epitaraxerol, and peganidine have been identified from the aerial parts of A. vasica (Atta-Ur-Rahman et al. 1997).
