Aesculus Hippocastanum L.
Dried seeds
The horse chestnust’s drug contains aescin, a mixture of saponins whose main constituents are glycosidic α-aescin and β-escin, tannins, flavonoids and coumarin.
Horse chestnut extracts are being successfully used to reduce the symptoms of chronic venous insufficiency such as heaviness in the legs, night cramps of calves, itching and swelling of the lower limbs. The efficacy of its derivatives is due to the content of escin, in particular the β isomer, but would be incorrect not considering that the beneficial effects are also supported by the percentage of flavonoids that have anti-inflammatory and vasoprotective powers. The FU XI reports that the horse chestnut seeds must contain not less than 3% of triterpene glycosides calculated as anhydrous escin referred to the dried drug.
