ABSTRACT
The toxicity of Chinese materia medica (CMM) is one of cores of the property theory of CMM. From the perspective of history, the literature source of the understanding on CMM toxicity was traced; The traditional and contemporary understanding about the meaning and classification of CMM toxicity was compared and analyzed; The ideas on CMM toxicity with the feature of tradition, experience, objectivity, the integrity of the concept, and some of the controllability were proposed; The theory and practice of traditional Chinese medicines should be combined in order to effectively integrate and apply various modern scientific and technical methods, and create new ideas about toxicity studies of CMM, which has the important significance on the comprehensive understanding about CMM toxicity, strengthening the research on CMM toxicity, and promoting the safety of CMM in clinical use.