ABSTRACT
During the period of rapid growth in the latter half of the 1980s, many enterprises entered the biotechnology industry, with one of their targets being the development of immunomodulatory substances. The effort to scientifically explain the effects of Chinese herbal medicine has a long history. One objective of such effort is to understand the effects of Chinese herbal medicine from a scientific or Occidental-medicinal viewpoint. Bupleuri radix and other crude drugs of plant origin are dried under appropriate conditions before use. The amino acid and sugar used were arginine and glucose, respectively, because they were found in the largest amounts in Bupleuri radix. Bupleuri radix mitogen is expected to belong to the same category. However, the crude drug contains various polyphenols, and their quality as well as quantity varies widely from one crude drug to another.
