The Oriental medical therapies are increasingly used in medical treatment in conjunction with the Western medical health care system in our country. As Oriental medicine and Western medicine are based on different scientific systems, there is no curriculum of Oriental medicine in Western medical school education. In 1996, we investigated opinions about Oriental medicine among medical students and teachers at Showa University. A mini follow-up survey was done in 1999 and 2000. Awareness of Oriental medicine was still limited, but those surveyed were remarkably interested in Oriental medicine. Moreover, they recognized Oriental medicine as an important and useful tool for the care of illnesses that do not respond to Western medicine. About 40% of the medical doctors at Showa University hospitals used Oriental medicine with their patients in 1996, and traditional knowledge was learned in its own way. According to the pharmaceutical department of Showa University, both the number and variety of Kampo prescriptions increased between 1996 and 2000. These results suggest that it is necessary to properly learn Oriental medicine from the foundations during medical school. More research on Oriental medicine in terms of clinical and basic science is necessary, and the opportunity to exchange information about Oriental medical diagnosis and treatments should be included in postgraduate curricula.

Collagen-induced arthritis (CIA) in DBA/1J mice is an autoimmune model driven by the combination of humoral and cellular immunity against cartilage type II collagen. It has been proven to be a useful model for human rheumatoid arthritis (RA). This study was designed to obtain experimental evidence of Kampo medicine Dokkatsu-kisei-to (DKT) in the treatment of RA by using mouse CIA. As positive control, prednisolone was given. The significant suppressive effect of DKT as measured by arthritis score persisted upon cessation of treatment on day 42 and remained until the termination of the experiment on day 63. The amelioration of inflammatory articular lesions was confirmed by radiological and histo-pathological findings. We also observed significantly decreased concentrations of serum TNF-α on day 28 and levels of serum IgG antibody against bovine type II collagen on day 49. These results suggest that DKT has important effects on immuno-inflammatory response and may be useful in the prevention of the onset and severity of arthritis.