道地药材的科学概念及评价方法探讨

Talking About "Genuine Medicinal Materials"

道地药材通常指来自特定产区、生产历史悠久、栽培加工技术精细、质量优良、疗效显著的药材,一般被用作优质药材的代名词。作者提出:1)局限于特定产区和(或)具有特殊的栽培加工技术的道地药材属于“原产地药材”,值得重视和保护;2)道地药材通常都是主产药材,但主产药材不等同于道地药材;3)主产区及道地产区的形成和变化有许多人为和主观的因素,新近形成的道地药材需要慎重对待;4)具有优质含义的道地药材十分有限。作者认为,当今由于药材质量评价的困难,一般难以用一个或少数几个化合物的含量来评判药材优劣,“道地”被作为经过历史检验的综合的质量评价称谓,使得“道地药材”被赋予了过高的科学含义,成为优质药材的代名词,这是很危险的事情。道地药材”名称不可滥用,对道地药材需进行多角度的深入研究和科学评价。

Genuine medicinal materials are those which are produced in specific regions and with long history of production , cultivated and processed by skilful techniques and enjoyed with excellent quality and evidently curative effects, and usually taken for the pronoun of such medicinal materials as of high quality accordingly. The author of this article points out that (1) The genuine medicinal materials which are produced within a specific region or cultivated and processed by special techniques belong to 'medicinal materials of origin' and are worth being paid great attention and protected; (2) Genuine medicinal materials are usually materials of main production in a region, but they are not the same at all; (3) As for the formation and change of the regions of main production of medicinal materials as well as the regions of the production of genuine medicinal materials there exist quite a lot of artificial and subjective factors, therefore those genuine medicinal materials which have newly emerged should be delt with aution; (4) Genuine medicinal materials implicated of excellent quality are few. The author holds that owing to the difficulty in assessing the quality of medicinal materials by the content of one or few compounds nowadays, it is dangerous to make the word 'genuine' implicated of the comprehensive assessment of quality tested by history and to endow excessively high scientific meaning to genuine medicinal materials , even becoming the pronoun of high - quality medicinal materials. Therefore, the name of genuine medicinal materials ' should not be used indiscriminately and profound studies and scientific assessment of genuine medicinal materials from various angles should be carried out.