Background: The korean medicinal plants have been frequantly used in oriental herbal prescriptions. Among them, 98 plants are adopted in herbal medical insurance system in Korea. Potential toxicity to hemopoietic system with 15 medicinal plants used for herbal medicine have been described. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the hemopoietic effect of 9 medicinal plants, most commonly used in herbal medicine.
Methods: All drugs were extracted by ethanol, and administrated in 292 male mice(ICR), 20±2gm of body weight. All mice were divided into 4 groups: The group I ;
the normal control, the group II ; intraperitoneal administration of cyclophosphamide, the group III ; oral administration of plant extracts in cyclophosphamide pretreated, and the group IV ; oral administration of plant extracts. All mice were sacrificed after 48 hours,
collecting blood from eye ball bed for CBC, and removing femur for bone marrow study.
Results:1. The hematological changes in the group II showed maximum depression in total WBC and neutrophil count by day 5th, RBC, Hb and Hct by day 4th. The reticulocyte count was showed significantly decrease until day 13th. The hemoglobin was normalized by day 13th.
2. The hematological changes in the group III showed significantly increase of WBC, Hb, Hct, and RBC in the Ginseng radix, while decrease of WBC, Hb, Hct, and RBC in
Plantaginis semen and Zanthoxyli fructus. The Glycyrrhizae radix and Paeoniae radix showed relative increase of Hb and Hct.
3. The hematological changes in the group IV showed relative increase of WBC, Hb, and Hct in Ginseng radix, significantly decrease of reticulocyte count in Glycyrrhizae
radix, Paeoniae radix, and Xanthoxyli fructus, decrease of WBC in Plantaginis semen and significantly decrease of Hb and Hct in Xanthoxyli fructus treated group, respectively.
4. The light microscopic findings of bone marrow in the group III showed increase of myeloid and erythroid hemopoiesis in Ginseng radix, while decrease of normoblast
number in Glycyrrhizae radix, Paeoniae radix, Plantaginis semen, and Zanthoxyli fructus.
5. The electron microscopic findings of bone marrow in the group III showed increase of mature granulocytes and normoblast number in Ginseng radix, while showed
immature myeloid cells, karyorrhexis, vacuoles in cytoplasm and decreased of normoblast number in Glycyrrhizae radix and Paeoniae radix, and decrease of myeloid cells in
Plantaginis semen and Zanthoxyli fructus.
Conclusion: Administration of Ginseng radix increased myeloid and erythroid hemopoiesis, while administration of Plantaginis semen, Zanthoxyli fructus, Glycyrrhizae
radix, and Paeoniae radix decreased peripheral blood cell count and reticulocytes count due to depression of hemopoietic cells in bone marrow.

Keywords: Herbal medicinal plants, Cyclophosphamide, Bone marrow,