Abstract
WooHwangChungSimWon is a traditional medicine for treatment of hypertension, arteriosclerosis, coma, and stroke in China, Korea, and Japan. In the new prescription of WooHwangChungSimWon, the civet is substituted for the musk, the major component of WooHwangChungSimwon, because of the prohibition law about the musk. We have made a comparative study of the effects on the central nervous system between the musk containing and civet containing WooHwangChungSimWon. In order to investigate the effects on the central nervous system, we have examined spontaneous motor activities, anti-convulsion activities induced by chemicals or electric shock, sleep induced by hexobarbital, and antistress effects. In the examination of anti-convulsion effects against the electric shock and injection of pentetrazol, only the civet containing WooHwangChungSimWon showed the anti-convulsion effects, i.e. the duration of convulsion by electric shock was decreased (control: 104.0 seconds, low dose of civet containing WooHwangChungSimWon: 60.7 seconds) and the duration of suppression against pentetrazol induced convulsion was increased (control: 392.3 seconds, low dose of civet containing WooHwangChungSimWon: 574.0 seconds, high dose of civet containing WooHwangChungSimWon: 561.4 seconds). In the other examinations, all kinds of WooHwangChungSimWon showed sedation, anti-convulsion activities, and induction of sleeping. These results suggest that there are no significant differences between the musk containing and civet containing WooHwangChungSimWon except the anti-convulsion effects against the convulsions induced by electric shock and pentetrazol.
