an overview of traditional chinese herbal formulae and a proposal of a new code system for expressing the formula titles概述中国传统草药配方,建议新代码系统的表达公式.pdfVIP

Advance Access Publication 4 August 2004 eCAM 2004;1(2)125–132 doi:10.1093/ecam/neh019 Review An Overview of Traditional Chinese Herbal Formulae and a Proposal of a New Code System for Expressing the Formula Titles Yeong-Deug Yi and Il-Moo Chang Natural Products Research Institute, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea Traditional Chinese herbal therapy can be characterized by the use of a large number of multi-herb formulae. To provide modern and Western scientists without knowledge of Chinese literature and cultural background easy access to information, a database with a total of 11 810 traditional Chinese herbal for- mulae was constructed. All the information was then translated into understandable scientific terms in English. While coining the formula titles in English, we discovered some principles governing the naming of titles by using computer analysis. In addition, we observed that about 92% of the formulae are in the range of single-herb formulae to thirteen-herb formulae. Most large number-herb formulae are formulated by combining pre-existing smaller number-herb formulae. The King herbs ( ) with major therapeutic activity in a multi-herb formula were identified by the formulation concept using two parameters: the herbal dose and the herbal drug property (the degree of toxicity). Based on such analytical data, we estab- lished an English code