BACKGROUND: It is discovered in clinical practice that the principles of regaining consciousness, opening orifice combining with benefiting qi and nourishing yin for the treatment of both root causes and symptoms can improve remarkably neurological functional recovery in acute stage of cerebral infarction.OBJECTIVE: To observe the effects of xingnaojing injection and angong niuhuang wan on neurological functional disturbance in acute stage of cerebral infarction.DESIGN: Randomized controlled study based on patients.SETTING: Guangdong General Hospital of Chinese People' s Armed Police Force.PARTICIPANTS: Inpatients with cerebral infarction in Department of Neurology of Guangdong General Hospital, Chinese People' s Armed Police Force from September 1998 to September 2003.METHODS: Totally 120 cases in the acute stage of cerebral infarction were randomized into xingnaojing injection group(XNJ), angong niuhuang wan (ANW) group and danshen fen(DSF) group, 40 cases in each group. Fourteen days after treatment, the therapeutic effects and neurological functional improvement were observed.MEAN OUTCOME MEASURES: Comparison of the improvement in neurological function in groups was carried on in the experiment. RESULTS: The total effective rates were 95%, 90% and 65% in xingnaojing injection group, angong niuhuang wan group and danshen fen group successively. The paralysis of limb was recovered more markedly in xingnaojing injection group and angong niuhuang wan group compared with the control. The therapeutic effect was significant in xingnaojing injection group.CONCLUSION: Both xingnaojing injection group and angong niuhuang wan group treat cerebral infarction of acute stage with better therapeutic effects, and the former provides rather remarkable effect on the recovery of neurological functional defect.