The History and Current Situation of Medicinal Plants and Crude Drug Production in Tohoku Region / 日本東洋医学雑誌

Ninety percent of the crude drugs consumed in Japan depend on imports. Recently, the Japanese government has been promoting the domestic production of crude drugs. We investigated the history and current situation of the cultivation of medicinal plants and the production of crude drugs in the Tohoku region, where the 71st annual meeting of the Japan Society for Oriental Medicine was held in August 2021. In the Tohoku region, the cultivation of medicinal plants expanded after the Kyoho era of the Edo period. Several medicinal plants in this region have been successfully cultivated and distributed as local specialty products and are being preserved (e.g., Panax ginseng in Aizu, Carthamus tinctorius in Dewa). In some other areas, cultivation has just begun. In each cultivation area, a contractual relationship was established in which local governments, cultivation experts, farmers, Kampo-related associations, and pharmaceutical companies collaborated to continue and expand the cultivation business. To generate revenue, they have been trying to find sales channels not only for crude drugs but also for foods, cosmetics, textiles, and processed products. Although many issues remain to be solved in the distribution of medicinal plants as the source of crude drugs, this survey clarified the ingenuity of medicinal plant cultivation in various areas of the Tohoku region. The results of the investigation are available as videos on the website for members of the Japan Society for Oriental Medicine.

Investigation of the “Sho” System using the Multivariate Analysing Technique / 日本東洋医学雑誌

In order to evaluate the “Sho” (Kampo diagnosis) objectively, the authors attempted to quantify patients in a hypertension patient group by means of the quantification III method.<br>The first axis of symptom values expressed Deficient/Excessive tendency. On scattergrams comprised of the first-second, first-third, and second-third axes, it was found that the symptoms were separated in some groups according to differences in their “patterns of appearance.” Furthermore, the group of symptoms nearly corresponded to the Oriental medicial concepts of Kan-utsu (Stagnation of the Liver), Kikyo (Qi deficiency) and Jinkyo (Kidney Deficiency).<br>These results suggest that we can use the quantificatiom III method to objectively evaluate the “Sho” and distinguish the appearance patterns of symptoms.