• Korean Journal of Pharmacognosy
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.330-334
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• 2008

Shin Kwae Hwan(神快丸) is a Chinese patent medicine which has been used for polymyositis, trigeminal neuralgiaand ischiodynia in Korea. It consists of 15 kinds of powdered crude drugs. In powered crude drugs, it is hard to identify each component by chemical analysis or morphological examination. However, the method of identification of powdered crude drugs has not been clearly established. For the identification of individual crude drugs in such powdery mixtures, microscopic method may advantageously be used, as it requires only small amount of specimens. In this study, it is demonstrated that the microscopic method is very effective for the identification of 15 crude drug ingredients in Shin Kwae Hwan.