ABSTRACT
The stability of volatile oil quality of traditional Chinese medicine is an important prerequisite for its clinical efficacy and safety. The quality of volatile oil of traditional Chinese medicine is affected by many factors, such as location, producing area, harvest time, extraction process, processing process and so on, which leads to the difference of oil yield or chemical composition of volatile oil, affects the uniformity of volatile oil quality of traditional Chinese medicine, and then affects the curative effect of volatile oil. Therefore, how to control the quality of volatile oil is the key to the role of volatile oil in traditional Chinese medicine. In this paper, the effects of different parts of medicinal materials, different producing areas and different harvest periods on the quality of volatile oil of traditional Chinese medicine were analyzed, and the 2015 edition of Chinese Pharmacopoeia containing volatile oil was classified according to medicinal parts, and the differences of volatile oil components of traditional Chinese medicine were discussed in order to provide reference for the development of volatile oil of traditional Chinese medicine and the establishment of quality standard of volatile oil of traditional Chinese medicine.