CHINA AS AN EXAMPLE OF DISTINCTION BETWEEN PHYTO-COMPLEX AND ACTIVE PRINCIPLE.
Thanks to its anti-malarial activity, china is one of the most important drugs. It is derived from plants of the genus Cinchona sp. and the drug, represented by the bark, is of great interest from the liqueur and herbalist point of view. Its importance lies in the fact that the phytocomplex and the active principles that characterize it, namely the alkaloids, have an extremely bitter taste.
Shredded bark of red china
This organoleptic characteristic of Indian ink means that it can be counted among the drugs AD AMARI, which boast distinctly eupeptic properties. The adjective eupeptic indicates that the drug has beneficial, healthy, or better normalizing properties on digestive activities; an eupeptic drug therefore acts on the whole apparatus and digestive function (in particular the gastric cavity, liver, gall bladder and pancreas). The china, moreover, as a drug to bitters and like all drugs to bitters, is also an APERITIVE drug and here it is explained the importance in the liqueur field. The aperitif properties are those that determine, due to the bitter taste of the drug and its derivatives, a stimulation of the salivary and hepato-gastric secretion, therefore bile and gastric juice. An aperitif drug, therefore, prepares the digestive system to receive food and digest it.- The herbal and liqueur importance of china lies in its eupeptic properties, in the herbalist sector, and in its aperitifs in the liqueur sector.
To better understand the relationship between pharmacognosy - herbal products and reality, a useful example is the " China Martini ", an exclusive hydro-alcoholic extract of china, as well as a classic aperitif product. The importance of china as an aperitif or as an eupeptic does not lie so much in the content of quinine, quinidine, cinconine and cinconidine, but in the fact that all these alkaloids, including other substances, are together; therefore, the importance of china as an aperitif product or eupeptic product is due to the combination of these active ingredients which, due to their bitter taste, determine the properties explained above.
A concept to better explain the phytocomplex - active principle, useful to understand why china can have antimalarial properties and why a person who drinks china martini cannot cure himself of malaria, is the concept of DOSAGE. The dose, the titre, the standardization, that quantity of active principles present in the hydroalcoholic solution. Because it is one thing to talk about the active principle and phytocomplex as a molecule - more molecules, an alkaloid - more alkaloids, an activity - the same activity modulated synergistically; another argument is to talk about the health activity of an alkaloid (active ingredient) or more alkaloids (phytocomplex) diluted in a solvent. The concept of dilution presupposes a certain amount of active ingredient, or a certain amount of phytocomplex, within a solvent suitable for the health preparation and whose concentration determines the extent and the healthy quality of the drug and the active principles. The quantity, the dosage of the active principle or of the phytocomplex in a solvent, are directly proportional to the intensity of the effect and in certain cases also to the quality of the effect; summing up, we can explain everything with the dose-response concept.
The active principles quinine or quinidine have their own activity; the first, in the pharmaceutical field and with an adequate dosage, has antimalarial and febrifugal properties (lower fever), while the second has antiarrhythmic properties (in the pharmaceutical field it is used as an active ingredient with cardiac activity); both act in this sense at very high concentrations, in fact we talk about pharmaceutical fields. Different is the situation of a liqueur product or of a digestive herbal tea where it can be contained china; the active principles, first of all, are not detectable as single entities, but as a whole, ie as a phytocomplex.
