Chronic gastritis is a non-special chronic inflammation of the gastric mucosa, which causes troubles in secretional and kinetic function of the stomach, gradually leading to progressive dystrophy of adenocytes.
Treatment of chronic gastritis is usually approached on the principle of removing the cause of the disease, protecting the gastric mucosa, and improving the diseased function of the gastric secretion.
Remedies of Koryo medicine are counted very important in dealing with chronic gastritis. Traditional Korean remedies in chronic gastritis have been in use for a long period of time. Many of the medical classics including Tonguibogam, which is a medical compendium of Korea, prescribe a lot of superb therapies and remedies regarding the symptoms of chronic gastritis.
The advantages of the traditional Korean medicine with a long-standing reputation have been acknowledged around the world, and it is becoming a worldwide practice to adopt traditional Korean methods of treatment. A typical example is that Koryo remedies for chronic gastritis are in wider application at home and abroad.
Koryo Internal Medicine Department No. 2, Koryo Medicine Faculty, Pyongyang Medical College,
True to the Workers' Party of Korea's policy of combining the traditional Koryo medicine and the modern one and putting the Koryo medicine on a higher scientific level, great efforts have been channeled into the deep study of scientific treatment of chronic gastritis by Koryo remedies; in the course of this a large number of problems have been solved regarding the syndromes of gastric inflammation, while a variety of effective Koryo medicine-oriented prescriptions have been developed.
As Koryo medicine is getting into wider application for treatment of chronic gastritis, researchers report different syndromes, necessitating coordinated documentary and clinical study of syndromes of chronic gastritis from the view of Koryo medicine. Dealing with the need, we knew that chronic gastritis comes mainly from Spleen deficiency syndrome, and is subject to influence of troubled hepatic function, that the basic cause of chronic gastritis is accordingly Spleen deficiency syndrome and syndrome of liver-ki invading the stomach, and that Gastro-Um deficiency syndrome and Kidney-yang deficiency syndrome can also be the cause. On the basis, we made a scrutiny of the gastric secretional function, the electrogastrogram result, the skin temperature and other results of examinations in combination with the confirmed syndromes. Then, we systematized the necessary data for objective establishment of the syndromes of chronic gastritis.
In the course of clinical study, we also developed a good many prescriptions for treatment of chronic gastritis, such as Kamijonggichonhyangsan, Kamibaekchulsan, Sanbaekthang, Kamirijunghwan, and Kamiijinthang. Most of these therapies are based on traditional common prescriptions for chronic gastritis, as well as on profound considerations of the efficacy of Koryo medicines and their pharmacological effects identified in modern times.
The treatment efficacy of Kamijonggichonhyangsan administered to 101 chronic cases of hypoacidity and/or anacidity turned out to be 91.1% successful; 92.9% of 84 chronic cases of hypoacidity and/or anacidity treated with Kamibaekchulthang got well; and 94.3% of 106 chronic cases of hypoacidity and/or anacidity were cured of the disease.
Kamijonggichonhyangsan developed—in simple composition—by our department some 30 years ago are recognized as an excellent prescription popular with the cases of chronic gastritis and other digestive disorders, such as troubled digestion and flatulence.
We will redouble our efforts in the research into efficacious methods of Koryo medicine to treat internal diseases.
