中藥方劑麻黃湯之定量研究

Quantitative Analysis of Ma-Huang Combination

麻黃湯含麻黃，桂枝，杏仁、甘草，是主要的發表之劑，本文以麻黃的麻黃素，偽麻黃素，桂枝的肉桂醛，杏仁的苦杏仁苷、苯甲醛，和甘草的甘草皂苷等為指標成分，利用高效能液相層析儀定量分析麻黃湯，個別組成藥材，二味及三味藥材共煮等湯液中的各成分含量。杏仁含苦杏仁苷，以水煎煮時完全分解為苯甲醛，投入沸騰的水中得到大量的苦杏仁苷和少量的苯甲醛；杏仁蒸炙30分鐘再用水煎煮，只檢測到苦杏仁苷，因此本文以生杏仁和蒸炙杏仁分別製作麻黃湯，個別檢討。分析添加生杏仁的麻黃湯，發現苯甲醛的相對抽取率只達七成，其他各指標成分含量也略微減少；而添加蒸炙杏仁的湯液中則增減互見，各成分相對抽出率分別為：麻黃素80%，偽麻黃素107%，肉桂醛95%，甘草皂苷79.6，苦杏仁苷105%。增減麻黃湯中各組成藥材的比例，不但影響該藥材本身的抽出量且會波及其他藥材的成分含量：在添加生杏仁的麻黃湯中，減半或加倍任一特定藥材，則甘草皂苷、肉桂醛、偽麻黃素都減少，苯甲醛增減互見，麻黃素則全部增加；而在添加蒸炙杏仁的麻黃湯中，減半或加倍組成藥材。計有苦杏仁苷和偽麻黃素減少，其他則互有增減，整體而言，以醫書記載的比例煎煮麻黃湯有最佳的萃取效果。將麻黃湯中的任兩味藥材混合煎煮，其藥效成分含量有均增，一增一減，均減三種情形，在九組煎液中僅生杏仁加甘草和甘草加麻黃兩組之指標成分均減少。對某一特定成分而言，三種藥材可製作一組三味藥材煎液和兩組二味藥材煎液，檢查三組的分析數據，發現前者與後兩組的關係可歸納為全同、半同、相加、相減、相乘、相除和其他等七種情形，其中以半同和相減者最多。

Ma-huang Combination, a Chinese medicinal preparation, is a chief diaphoretic formula containing Ephedrae Herba, Cinnamomi Ramus, Armeniacae Semen, and Glycyrrhizae Radix. In this paper the compounds l-ephedrine and pseudoephedrine from Ephedrae Herba, cinnamaldehyde from Cinnamomi Ramus, amygdalin and benzaldehyde from Armeniacae Semen, and glycyrrhizin from Glycyrrhizae Radix were used as indexing constituents for quantitative analysis of Ma-huang Combination and its component herbs by high performance liquid chromatography. Armeniacae Semen contains amygdalin which was completely decomposed into benzaldehyde when the herb was decocted in water. As the herb was placed in boiling water directly, a large amount of amygdalin and a small amount of benzaldehyde were obtained. However, when a steam-processed article (herb was steamed for 30 minutes) was used, only amygdalin was detected. Hence, in this paper, raw and steam-processed samples of Armeniacae Semen were respectively used to prepare the Ma-huang Combination. Analysis of the formula containing raw Armeniacae Semen showed that contents of the six indexing constituents were all reduced, especially for that of benzaldehyde which reached only 70~70 of those in the decoction of Armeniacae Semen alone. While formula made up of steam- processed Armeniacae Semen was found to have much better relative extraction yields and was shown as follows: l-ephedrine 83~-/0, pseudoephedrine 107%, cinnamaldehyde 95%, glycyrrhizin 79~70 and amygdalin 105%. Varying the proportion of a component herb in an herbal formula affected the extraction yield of not only the component herb itself, but also of all the other herbs, it was found that halving or doubling the amount of any component herb in Ma-huang Combination would cause a reduced yield in most of the individual constituents, and therefore formula according to the composition recorded in traditional Chinese medical books would produce the best extraction yields. Boiling together any two component herbs of the formula produced three results: increased yields in both herbs, increase in one herb and decrease in the other, and decrease in both herbs. Among the nine decoctions of the groupings, only the groupings of raw Armeniacae Semen with Glycyrrhizae Radix and Glycyrrhizae Radix with Ephedrae Herba had decreases in all indexing constituents. For a specific constituent, three component herbs can be grouped into one combination containing the three herbs, and two combinations each containing two of the three herbs. Investigation of the analytic data found that there were seven relationships between the first combination and the other two combinations: all the same, partial the same, additional, substracting, potentiating, depotentiating and the other. Of which the cases belonging to partial the same and substracting were found to be most frequently.