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German chamomile (Matricaria chamomilla L.) is found growing wild in many countries, but the amount of drug required due to its both medicinal and industrial importance is produced also by large-scale cultivation.
hamomile, an annual plant belonging to Asteraceae family, is widely used as a food supplement and considered a health food by many consumers. It is one of the most popular medicinal plants in use as an herbal tea and in the west is the most popular tea that uses flowers as single herbs; more than 1 million cups of chamomile tea are consumed daily.
The common name chamomile is widely used for two different varieties, German or Hungarian chamomile Matricaria chamomilla L. (synonyms Chamomilla recutita (L.) Rauschert and Matricaria recutita L.) and Roman chamomile Anthemis nobilis L. Both are used in a number of commercial products, but German chamomile is the most common type used for medicinal purposes and is known to contain several classes of biologically active compounds including essential oils, coumarins and several polyphenols, primarily the flavonoids.
In Germany, the chamomile flower is licensed as a standard medicinal tea (infusion) for oral ingestion, for topical application as a rinse or gargle, cream or ointment, as a vapor inhalant, and as an additive for sitz or vapor baths. The German E Commission has approved chamomile for internal use as a tisane (infuse 1 table-spoonful of the drug in 1 l of cold water and do not heat) to treat GI spasms, inflammatory diseases of the GI tract, inflammation of the urinary tract and for painful menstruation and for external use in the treatment of inflammation of the skin, mucous membranes and ano-genital area, bacterial skin diseases (including those of the oral cavity and gums) and respiratory tract inflammation .
In addition to medicinal uses, the oil is extensively used in perfumery, cosmetics, aromatherapy and in food industry. The quality of the essential oil, often called “blue oil”, is determined by its color. As the name indicates, bluer oil is considered to be of better quality, because blue color serves as the chemical marker for the presence of terpenoids, chiefly chamazulene and α-bisabolol.
Distillation Metode
steam distillation
The major components are α-bisabolol oxide, followed by camphene, sabinene, limonene,1,8-cineole, camphor, and α-pinene