Targeting Effect of Traditional Chinese Medicine

Abstract

Most drugs have a widespread distribution in vivo, and effects beyond the disease site need to be avoided. As to herbs, it contains many components with different structure and varied effects, how to achieve the desired effect at the required site is a great challange. In ancient China, people usually get this goal by co-administration of other drugs, and in thousands of years, the experience was summarized as meridian guide theory. Since meridian guide theory is based on meridian distribution and compatibility, therefore, we should give a brief review about meridian, meridian distribution, and meridian guide drug. In ancient China, diseases were treated by many methods, such as acupuncture, stone needle, drug, medicated bath, application, fumigate, and surgery. Concept of meridian was raised with acupuncture. In , the first monograph of China published at about 200 BC, diseases were divided according to their meridian, “meridian belongs to entrails inside and artus outside”. There are 12 meridians, named as lung meridian, large intestine meridian, pericardium meridian, San Jiao meridian, heart meridian, small intestine meridian, spleen meridian, stomach meridian, liver meridian, gallbladder meridian, kidney meridian and urinary bladder meridian. Name of meridian is based on the main entrails the disease correlate and the route it will pass. And in , there are descriptions about the position, shape and weight of liver, heart, spleen, lung, kidney, intestine, stomach, gallbladder and urinary bladder, which are similar to that of modern anatomy. However, in ancient times, the anatomy was rough, and some version is different from modern views. For example, kidney is the main organ in kidney meridian, the function of “kidney” in traditional Chinese medicine includes kidney and genitical gland located near kidney. At that time, disease diagnosis and treatment especially in acupuncture was based on their meridian, such as taiyang diseases, yangming diseases, etc. In Han dynasty, the famous physician Zhang Zhong-Jing described a method of diagnose analyse and differentiate febrile diseases in accordance with the theory of six pairs of channels in his book (Fu, 1990). Thereafter, drug use was summarized according to syndromedifferentiation of the six meridians. For example, nutgrass galingale rhizome is used to treat liver diseases, therefore, its meridian belongs to liver; fritillariae tuber is used to treat lung diseases such as cough, asthma, therefore, its meridian belongs to Lung; borneol is used to treat heart diseases, its meridian distribution is heart, etc. Some drugs have a wide use, its meridian distribution may be two or three entrails. For example, bupleuriradix is used to treat diseases of liver, Sanjiao, arcula cordis,