Understanding the traditional aspect of Chinese medicine in order to achieve meaningful quality control of Chinese materia medica.

Although sophisticated and technologically advanced, current quality control methods for Chinese medicines (syn. Chinese materia medica or CMM) lack comprehensiveness and practicability. They are more suited for analyzing single-chemical drugs or specific, known chemical components that have already been isolated. While these methods can fully satisfy the modern scientific requirements for identity, purity and quality in the assessment of chemical drugs, they are not suitable for handling the complex chemical nature of traditional CMM whose multifunctional components along with their inherent holistic activities are frequently unknown and thus are not adequately analyzed by these methods. In order to assess properly and meaningfully the identity and quality of complex CMM (also known as Chinese herbs and Chinese herbal medicines), additional measures that can retain the traditional aspect of CMM need to be included. This requires a basic understanding of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM).