Establishment of a Gas Chromatographic Fingerprint Spectrum of the Traditional Chinese Medicine Cortex Magnoliae Officinalis

Objective To set up a method for the crude drug fingerprint spectrum analysis of the chemical constituents in Cortex Magnoliae Officinalis so as to provide basis for the identification of the drug. Methods Steam distillation method was used to extract volatile oil components from the crude drugs of Cortex Magnoliae Officinalis obtained from different sources.The fingerprint spectrum of the extracts were assayed with capillary gas chromatography and compared with the cluster analysis method. Results Drug samples of Cortex Magnoliae Officinalis from 10 different sources were divided into two kinds: 9 samples showed degrees of similarity between 0.9-1.0,while 1 sample had a degree of similarity below 0.9. Conclusion This method was shown to have high sensitivity and good reproducibility and the cluster analysis method made the spectrum analysis faster and more accurate,and is thus suitable for the quality identification of Cortex Magnoliae Officinalis.