Botanical Names

[Guest guest]

RE: Botanical names, naming of materia medica

 

I have placed a pdf file that can be downloaded via the URL:

www.paradigm-pubs.com/drugname.pdf

 

You will need acrobat reader.

 

These pages cover the issues related to the nomenclature of medicinals in CM in

considerable detail.

 

A word of explanation may be useful. Translators need to translate much more

than they publish. Wiseman, with contributions by others, translated the

entire

materia medica of the PRC, about 6,000 entities. It is not clear when, or if,

we

will publish what is called the ``Complete Materia Medica'' in the above paper.

The Wiseman & Feng Practical Dictionary was adopted by the Beijing

Traditional Academy as the standard for the materia medica they co-published

with the American Chemical Society, and is currently being used as the standard

for names, indications, and relationships to TCM patterns in an extension of

the software that pharmaceutical researchers use to explore molecular

structures. The purpose of the software project is to keep the relationship of

indications and patterns in CM from being lost in free translation, or

translation to biomedical terminology. The research community has begun to

recognize that many ``CM failures'' are really just weak transmission - e.g.:

wrong formulas, foreshortened courses or treatment, etc. So, we will probably

wait and see what we learn before setting a publication schedule.

 

This paper was part of the peer review process but was circulated only among

the several persons we work with on a regular basis. Thus, it has not been

formalized; we put our usual free distribution license and a current copyright

on the paper over the weekend and formed it as a PDF for distribution via the

web. Thus, there are likely some unkempt proofings, etc. Regardless, it

should

be a useful foundation for any discussion.

 

Bob

 

 

bob Paradigm Publications

www.paradigm-pubs.com 44 Linden Street

Robert L. Felt Brookline MA 02445

617-738-4664