Abstract
An Chung Hwan(安中丸) is a Chinesε patent medicine, which has been used for various purposes in Korea. An Chung Hwan is composed of 15 kinds of powdered crude drugs and has been used for stomachic disorder, acute and chronic indigestion, dyspepsia, and diarrhea. For the identification of individual crude drugs in such powdery mixtures, microscopic method may advantageously be used as it requires only a 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 An Chung Hwan.