Calculus Bovis is a precious traditional Chinese medicine and an important raw material of Chinese patent medicine. Has the effects of resolving phlegm, inducing resuscitation, removing toxic substances, cooling liver and calming wind. Because the actual demand is far greater than the output of natural bezoar, the regulatory authorities approved artificial bezoar, cultured bezoar and cultured bezoar in vitro. However, the contents of bilirubin and deoxycholic acid in artificial bezoar are different from those in natural bezoar, so it can not replace natural bezoar in clinical acute and severe drugs.
At present, among 4,500 kinds of Chinese patent medicines in China, about 650 kinds contain bezoar, and the annual demand for bezoar is about 200 tons. However, "a thousand dollars is easy to get, but bezoar is hard to find." For thousands of years, bezoar has been obtained by farmers slaughtering cattle, but the natural bezoar produced in China is less than 1 ton every year.
In order to meet the needs of the development of Chinese medicine industry, China once spent nearly $65,438,000,000,000 on importing natural bezoar every year. However, in 2002, in order to prevent mad cow disease from being introduced into China through medication, the state decided to ban the import of bovine-derived raw materials to prepare proprietary Chinese medicines. Since then, natural bezoar resources have become scarcer.
In recent years, the price of natural bezoar has been rising. Driven by interests, some pharmaceutical manufacturers use artificial bezoar instead of bezoar in the production of proprietary Chinese medicines containing bezoar, and the proprietary Chinese medicines containing bezoar in the market are "mixed fish and dragons".