Lepidium sativum is widely used as herbal medicine in India. It is widely available in market and has very low cost. Lepidium sativum have been widely used to treat a number of ailments in traditional system of medicine throughout India. Natural gums and mucilage as important part of formulation with the development of pharmaceutical dosage forms. Mucilages are generally normal products of metabolism, formed within the cell. Mucilage and gums have been used since ancient times for their medicinal uses. In the modern era also they are widely used in the pharmaceutical industries as thickeners, water retention agents, emulsion stabilizers, suspending agents, binders and film formers, disintegrants as well as sustaining agents in tablets and as gelling agents. A variety of parts of the plant namely; seeds, leaves and roots have been used in treating various human ailments. The seeds of Lepidium sativum contain the mucilage around the outer layer. The major problem in isolation of mucilage is that it swells but does not separate from the seeds. Because of this, general methods of separation of mucilage are not applicable to separate the seed mucilage and hence, different procedures were tried for the separation of mucilage by using various methods. Chemical, Fourier transforms infrared (FTIR) spectraland physicochemical characterization of Lepidium sativum mucilage were performed.
