Chinese Medicinal Identification

Chinese Medicinal Identification shows how for centuries, pharmacists and clinicians have relied on the traditional method of macroscopic identification to assess the quality and authenticity of medicinal materials. The naked senses of macroscopic identification were used to assess herbal quality, combining appearance, texture, aroma, and taste with traditional methods of fire and water testing.
This ist the first time, this book brings this specialized discipline of knowledge to English readers using a concise, illustrated format that distills the experience of China’s foremost authorities in visually rich, easy-to-understand format. This book is an illustrated approach and records 429 commonly used Chinese medicinal materials (including associated medicinals), using the Chinese Pharmacopoeia (2005) combined with domestic and international market investigation as a basis for determining medicinal nomenclature. Each medicinal, details are provided on nomenclature, origin, harvesting and post-harvest handling, functions and properties, macroscopic characteristics, and decoction pieces. Chinese Medicinal Identification can be referenced via a Chinese stroke order index, a Pinyin index, and indexes organized by Latin Pharmaceutical names and Latin binomials. It emphasizes the experience-based differentiation of Chinese medicinal materials, which is a treasure of China’s cultural heritage that has been inherited and systematized, combining the technical terms derived from experience in differentiation with a modern scientific perspective.
The authors Dr. Hubiao Chen and Prof. Zhongzhen Zhao draw upon a foundation of years of field research and experiments related to medicinal materials, synthesizing information on trade, literature, and techniques, dissecting each detail. Chinese Medicinal Identification visually illustrates the art and science of macroscopic identification of medicinal materials in a way that is easy to learn, easy to remember, and easy to disseminate, supplementing the insufficient state of illustrations in the current literature.
Edited by Ping Guo and Eric Brand.

Eric Brand, M.S., L.Ac., is a graduate of Pacific College of Oriental Medicine. Brand is a fluent Chinese speaker with extensive experience studying in mainland China and Taiwan. He completed a prolonged internship at Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in Taiwan, and he has participated in numerous projects related to Chinese medicine translation, herbal research, and TCM politics. He is the co-author of Concise Chinese Materia Medica and he has edited a variety of modern classical texts. Eric Brand has a passion for Chinese herbal pharmacy, and he travels extensively to study with experts in the field of herbal authentication and quality discernment. In addition to being the founder of Legendary Herbs, he works at Blue Poppy Enterprises as an author, lecturer, and herbal medicine specialist, and in the past he has worked as an instructor and clinical supervisor at the Pacific College of Oriental Medicine in San Diego, California. Brand is a TCM advisor to the American Herbal Pharmacopoeia and the Co-Chair of International Affairs for the AAAOM, and he constantly has too much on his plate on both sides of the Pacific-Ocean.

Dr. Hubiao Chen is currently as Associate Professor at the School of Chinese Medicine at Hong Kong Baptist University. He received his Bachelor degree from Hunan Normal University in 1983, and he obtained his PhD at the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences of Beijing Medical University in 1988.