While Westerners have questioned the medical effects of rhino horn and tiger bone, the Japanese, with a long tradition of using Chinese medicine, were able in 1927 to isolate an active medicinal component of bear gall: ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA).
在西方還懷疑犀角、虎骨的療效時，同樣受中藥文化影響深遠的日本，卻在一九二七年就由熊膽中分離出具有療效的特殊成分「脫氧熊膽酸（UDCA）」。