著者

酒井 英二 飯田 修 川原 信夫 邑田 仁 佐々木 隆宏

出版者

日本生薬学会

雑誌

生薬学雑誌 (ISSN:13499114)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.69, no.2, pp.48-52, 2015-08

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Chasteberry, the fruit of Vitex agnus-castus, has been used in Europe from ancient times for medicinal purposes, and is described in De Materia Medica by an ancient Greece physician, Pedanius Dioscorides. Currently, chasteberry is listed in European pharmacopoeia and its medicinal products are widely distributed in the European market. A Japanese regulation on the marketing authorization application for pharmaceutical products including those with European herbal drugs as their active ingredients was promulgated by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in March 2007, and a pharmaceutical product containing chasteberry has been put on the market recently. Since there are several crude drugs derived from the plants belonging to the same genus as chasteberry, the morphological investigation of chasteberry has been performed in order to differentiate it from other crude drugs of the same genus.