ABSTRACT
Drug therapy was, and still is, the most potent and widely used treatment in traditional Chinese medicine. Drug therapy includes two genres of literature – materia medica collections (Bencao ) and formularies (Fangshu ). Materia medica collections, as evident from their name, provide information about individual drugs or simples ( yao ) and the symptoms they treat. The drugs are natural products taken from plants, animals, and minerals. Materia medica collections often served as reference texts during the education of a physician. Formularies list and discuss formulas ( fang ) or prescriptions composed of a number of individual drugs. The formulas were considered “proven remedies” collected by physicians during their clinical practice. The physicians transmitted them to their disciples and at some point the accumulated knowledge was published.
