Evolution and transition of quality evaluation of Platycodon grandiflorum / 中国中药杂志

Platycodon grandiflorum, a traditional Chinese medicine commonly used for coughing and eliminating phlegm to relieve asthma, has gained great attention to its quality evaluation in ancient and modern herbal books. This paper investigated the methods of quality evaluation in the ancient herbal books systematically, and the results showed that there were bitter and sweet P. grandiflorum, south and north P. grandiflorum. Those distributed in east China were called south P. grandiflorum, with bitter taste; and those distributed in north China, northeast China were called north P. grandiflorum, with sweet taste. There was a common sense that P. grandiflorum with a bitter taste had good quality in the ancient herbal books, namely those produced in east China. P. grandiflorum of better quality were characterized by thicker and longer root, white color, solid texture and bitter taste in properties. In addition, the quality of P. grandiflorum was also affected by its germplasm, collecting and processing. This paper summarized the formation and development of the "assessing the quality by distinguishing features of traditional Chinese medicinal materials" views of P. grandiflorum, providing the herbalism basis for its present quality evaluation.

Evolution and transition of source of Patrinia Herba and Patrinia Radix / 中国中药杂志

Both Patrinia Herba and Patrinia Radix are traditional Chinese herbal medicines. The herbal source and medicinal part of them are confusing in the herbal medicine market of China. To explore the evolution and transition of the herbal source and medicinal part of Patrinia Herba and Patrinia Radix, this paper systematically summarizes the record of the herbal source and medicinal part of them in ancient classics of herbal medicine in China. According to the findings, before Ming Dynasty, Patrinia Herba originated from the radix of the plants with yellow flowers of Patrinia. In Ming and Qing Dynasty, Patrinia Herba originates from the whole plant (including the radix)of the plant with white flowers of Patrinia. In Ming Dynasty, Patrinia Radix, stemming from the radix of the plants with yellow flowers of Patrinia, started to be used as a traditional Chinese herbal medicine, which had the same herbal source with that of Patrinia Herba before Ming Dynasty. Therefore, Patrinia Herba and Patrinia Radix can be seen as the same traditional Chinese herbal medicine, and the genuine of Patrinia Herba should be the radix and the whole herba of P. scabiosaefolia and P. heterophylla.

Research on evolution and transition of quality evaluation of Shihu / 中国中药杂志

Shihu is one of the most valuable Chinese medicines in China. The sources of Shihu are complex and the quality evaluation of it mainly depends on morphologic characteristics distinction. In order to understand the Shihu's quality evaluation concept of Chinese herbalists in the past dynasties. This paper summarizes the methods of quality evaluation in ancient bencao systematically. The ancient bencao records that the quality of Shihu is closely related to its germplasm, habitat, processing and character. The concept of germplasm about shihu includes generalized and narrow sense, besides, the clinical applications of Dendrobium huoshanenese, D. officinale and D. nobile are focused on different diseases. D. huoshanenese has been regarded as Dao-di herbs since Qing Dynasty. The main products of Shihu contain fresh goods and dry goods, their clinical applications are also treated differently. Fengdou is one of the commodity specifications in Shihu. Its processing method probably dated from the Qing Dynasty, but now, it has become the mainstream commodityform. There was a common sense that different kinds of Shihu owed different characters and curative effects in ancient bencao, and the quality would enhance with the increasing viscidity. Therefore, the "Germplasm", "Geoherbs", "processing", "characters" were integrated into traditional quality evaluation methods of Shihu. Meanwhile, we should pay attention to the clinical efficacy of shihu with different species and processing methods.