Poison Effect of Traditional Chinese Medicine (中药的毒性)

In the old days, medicine is often referred to as Poison. There is a saying, as long as it is a medicine it has to have some poison components (是药三分毒). We use this poison component (better to call them side effect) to treat illness. It is the present of the side effect of chinese medicine that enable the treatment of illness. If any chinese medicine herb is as pure or as neutral as drinking water, how can it provide cure to illness?

The different classifications of posion level in the olden days are as follow: -
1. Big Poison (大毒)
2. Common Poison (常毒)
3. Small Poison (小毒)
4. No Poison (无毒)

Nowadays the Chinese Pharmacopeia, 2005 Edition (中华人民共和国药典, 2005年版) classified the poison levels as: -
1. Big Poison (大毒)
2. Poison (有毒)
3. Little Poison (小毒)

It is clearly stated in the Chinese Pharmacopeia, 2005 Edition, the different characteristic of different chinese herbs. It can seen from the attached information (extract from the Chinese Pharmacopeia, 2005 Edition), the Properities, Favours, Meridian Tropism and Poison status of the chinese herb Gan Sui (甘遂) is listed very clearly.



In the next post, we shall discussed the modern interpretation of the Medicinal Side Effect of Traditional Chinese Medicine (中药的毒副作用).