The pharmacology of Chinese herbs

The Pharmacology of Chinese Herbs brings together ancient Chinese herbal lore and Western scientific methods in an up-to-date, comprehensive volume. This marriage of ideas can be useful in applying emerging gene-modification technology and medicinal chemical techniques to modify the structures of purified herbal ingredients into better agents with higher efficacy and activity.

Following a brief history of Chinese herbal medicine, a total of 473 herbs are categorized into 39 chapters, with each herb described in terms of its chemical composition, pharmacological actions, toxicity, and therapeutic uses. At the beginning of each chapter, a short paragraph covers the criteria by which traditional Chinese medicine judged the effectiveness of the herb. Scientific and experimental data as recent as 1991 is used to describe the pharmacological actions of each herb. This data is then compared to information from Chinese pharmacopeia and folk medicine.