Houttuynia cordata Thunb. (Saururaceae) is a traditional
medicinal plant used in China for years for the treatment of
cough, leucorrhea and ureteritis so on (Ji and Zhao, 2003;
Zhou, 2003; Sun et al., 2004). A previous study showed that
the steam distillate prepared from fresh plants of Houttuynia
cordata Thunb. possessed direct inhibitory activity against herpes
simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1), influenza virus and human
immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) without showing cytotoxicity
(Hayashi et al., 1995).
Houttuynia cordata injection (HCI), a traditional Chinese
medicine used in China for dozens of years, was the aqueous
solution of the steam distillate from plants of Houttuynia
cordata. At May 23, 2003, Chinese scientists unveiled a list
of eight types of traditional Chinese medicine that have been