Dictionary for Quick Lookup of Traditional Chinese Medicine Aliases

Author: Li Shunbao
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 1997-03-01
Features: Chinese medicine aliases are relative to the official names of Chinese medicinal substances. Their emergence has historical roots, with records of multiple names for a single herb as early as 2,000 years ago in the Shen Nong's Herbal. The reasons for the existence of Chinese medicine aliases are diverse, with regional names, prescription names, commercial names, common terms, and colloquial names being the most common. If names for local varieties, processed names, and names for mixed or similar herbs are also included, it can be said that almost every Chinese herb has aliases, ranging from three to forty, to one or two. Moreover, many cases of different herbs sharing the same alias are also not uncommon. The vast number of Chinese medicine aliases, like the stars in the sky, makes their application extremely inconvenient, posing numerous difficulties for practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine. In light of this, after extensively collecting data and spending several years compiling it, we have created the Comprehensive Dictionary of Chinese Medicine Aliases, hoping it will be helpful for those who need to look up Chinese medicine aliases. This dictionary includes 31,813 aliases and adopts a combination of stroke order and coded numbering for ease of reference.