ABSTRACT
Objective To explore the application range and preponderance of different therapeutic methods of traditional medicines in overseas countries with retrospective studies on bibliographies of overseas traditional medicines. Methods All bibliographies were articles written in August 1964 to September 2009 and came from MEDLINE data base through searching 17 inferior words of"replacement therapy" in MeSH subject headings. Results We got altogether 10103 articles in 1633 kinds of periodicals concerned with replacement therapy, and summed up to 9841 effective articles in the end. Conclusion More and more attentions have been paid to traditional medicine in overseas countries; Such kinds of articles were mostly published in American and British medical periodicals; articles with advanced technologies and high reliability have more chances to be adopted by medical periodicals; traditional Chinese medicine plays a leading role in the fields of traditional medicines in the whole world; replacement therapy were increasingly adopted to deal with disease protection and health care.