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This article reviews the developmental stages and strategies used to assess the biomedical utility of biopolymer albumin from the 1970s to early 2002. The basic method and mechanism(s) of preparation of albumin microspheres and subsequent modifications made to overcome the drawbacks of earlier approaches and the need for further developments are discussed, as are the processing parameters and the level of various ingredients affecting the physicochemical properties of the albumin microspheres. Different equations proposed by various investigators to modulate in vitro release kinetics are reviewed. The microscopic structural and surface properties, the chemical modification of the biopolymer (e.g., cationization, tagging with amino acids and sugar moieties) for tissue specificity or to influence the release profile and biodegradation are discussed. An array of potential diagnostic applications and the use of albumin microspheres as a drug delivery system are reviewed. Drug Dev.

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The number of hits on the internet based science-specific search engine "Scirus" [23] up to mid July 2011 for the key words and the details thereof are given in Table 1. The significance of genus Artemisia is seen in its number of hits, which is 89,080.The total number of hits appeared for "Artemisia afra" (A. afra) were 885 of which, 5 had no dates. Figure 1 is the graph of 162 publications that appeared in Journal Sources classified and plotted on yearly basis from Jan. 1922 to Nov. 2011 for "A. afra".Only two scientific publications based on laboratory work were found in the literature over a span of half a century, first by Goodson in Jan. 1922 [24] and then second by Bohlman and Zdero in 1972 [25]. Both the papers report the constituent's of A. afra. Goodson investigated if A. afra contained anything that could be regarded as a precursor or a derivative of santonin in consequence of the difficulty of obtaining santonin that was then used as the sole source of anthelmintic. He showed that A. afra contains camphor, a wax-ester probably ceryl cerotate, triacontane, scopoletin and quebrachitol and none which

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