QUANTITATIVE DETERMINATION OF THE MAIN PRINCIPLES IN ARTIFICIAL COW-BEZOAR BY THIN LAYER CHROMATOGRAPHIC SCANNER

Natural cow-bezoar is a precious Chinese traditional medicine. Now its supply falls short of demand because of low production. To get "natural cow-bezoar" by artificial culture can increase its production and enlarge its source.In this study the main principles (cholic acid, deoxycholic acid, cholesterol, cholerythrin) of 17 kinds of artificial cow-bezoar were analyzed quantitatively by model CS-930 thin layer scanner, and compared with the natural cow-bezoar and synthetic eow-bezoar. The results indicate that the content of cholerythrin in artificial cow-bezoar is lower than that in natural cow-bezoar, but is higher than that in synthetic cow-bezoar. The total contents of cholic acid and deoxycholic acid in the cow-bezoar which was cultivated more than a year and ten months is higher than that in natural cow-bezoar of the same producing area, but its cholesterol content is lower. The individual exception in the analyses is probably due to difference of the specific animal. Therefore, it is necessar to do further research about this problem.