Herbal Medicine, also known as Herbalism, herbology, and phytotherapy, is a folk and traditional medicinal practice based on the use of plants and plant extracts. Herbs fall into two major dimensions. The first dimension refers to the temperature characteristics of the herb, namely hot, warm, cold, neutral, and aromatic. The second dimension refers to the taste property of the herb, namely sour, bitter, sweet, spicy, and salty.
Chinese Herbal Medicine is a part of an overall health care system with a history of 4000 years. It has great antiquity, with therapeutic roots extending back to Zhou Dynasty. It is an ancient system of health care that has undergone continual development over the centuries as the causes of illness that afflict mankind have evolved. It is not an alternative form of therapy, but is used in the state hospitals alongside modern medicine.
Chinese herbs have been part of Chinese medicine for since 4,000 years ago. The first known Materia Medica, the Shennong Bencao Jing (Shennong Emperor's Classic of Materia Medica), lists some 365 medicines of which 252 of them are herbs, and dates back to the Han dynasty. Earlier literature included lists of prescriptions for specific ailments, these were found in a manuscript "Recipes for 52 Ailments", found in the Ma Wang Dui tomb Han Era at 202 BCE to 220 CE.
A year earlier, a tomb of a Later Han (25 to 220 CE) physician in Wu-Wei County, Kansu Province was discovered with 92 wooden bamboo slips. The grave gave important pharmaceutical data such as the medical records including a list of some thirty prescriptions. All these featured about a hundred drugs. It is evident from the extant material that some three centuries after the burial of the Han elite at Mawangdui, Chinese herbal medicine had developed to an increased level of therapeutic sophistication. The Chinese herbal medicine continued to develop and in 500 CE, the first extensive materia medica or compendium of herbal substances was published. It was the work of the Daoist adept Taohong Jing and had 364 entries.
By 1596, the Ben Cao Gang Mu of the Ming medical literatus Li Shizhen (1518-1593) exemplified the apogee of Chinese herbalism. Published three years after his demise, this Grand Materia Medica contained no less that 1892 entries.
In the succeeding centuries of the Imperial Era, Chinese herbal medicine continued to develop. It is now of interest to those seeking a more natural approach to their medical problems in many countries outside the People's Republic of China.