Box 2.

Resources for health professionals on Chinese herbal medicine

Text resources

Botanical Safety Handbook. Edited by Michael McGuffin, ChristopherHobbs, Roy Upton, Alicia Goldberg. Boston: CRC Press; 1997. A comprehensive,conservative guide to many herbs, including those in the Chinese materiamedica. Daniel Bensky, Andrew Gamble. Chinese Herbal Medicine MateriaMedica. Seattle: Eastland Press; 1993. Herb names can be accessed inAsian languages as well as in botanical and common terms. The text discussestraditional use, contraindications, toxicity, and research data for over 400substances. Kun-Ying Yen. The Illustrated Chinese Materia Medica. Translatedby Nigel Wiseman. Taibei: SMC Publishing; 1992. An excellent resource, withphotographs, for the identification of many Chinese herbs. Chang Hson-Mou, and Paul Pui-hay But. Pharmacology and Applications ofChinese Materia Medica (Volumes 1 & 2). Translated by Sih-Cheng Yao,Lai-Ling Wang, and Shem Chang-Shing Yeung. Singapore: World Scientific; 1986,1987. The preeminent English language text compilation of research data onChinese herbal medicine. Traditional Chinese Medicines: Molecular Structures, Natural Sources,and Applications. Compiled by X Yan, J Zhou, and G Xie. Brookfield:Ashgate; 1999. A technical and comprehensive resource to guide biochemists andpharmacological researchers. It provides an opportunity to assess the presenceof a suspected chemical in a specific Chinese herb.

Internet resources

American Botanical Council(www.herbalgram.org) Herbal Research Foundation(www.herbs.org) US Food and Drug Administration(www.fda.org) National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) at theNational Institutes of Health (NIH)(altmed.od.nih.gov/) United States Pharmacopeia(www.usp.org) Alternative Medicine Foundation, Inc(www.herbmed.org)