Bencao Index is compiled and maintained by a registered Chinese medicine practitioner in active clinical practice, and is published without a byline.
That is a deliberate choice rather than an oversight. The entries are written by someone who fills these prescriptions rather than assembled from other people's books — but a catalogue of this kind should be judged on whether its botanical identities are right and its sources are sound, not on whose name is at the top. Where an entry is wrong it is wrong regardless of who wrote it.
The catalogue began as a working dispensary's own records — the names, pharmaceutical Latin, botanical identities and formula compositions used to fill real prescriptions — and is being extended entry by entry against the standard references and the classical source texts.
Names are recorded in pinyin, Chinese, pharmaceutical Latin, English and, where known, Japanese and Korean. That cross-language mapping is the part of this catalogue that is hardest to find elsewhere, and it is the part that is most complete.
This is a catalogue in progress and it does not pretend otherwise. It currently holds 1,105 herbs, 492 formulas, 110 categories.
Names, botanical identity and formula composition are largely in place. The clinical sections — actions and indications, dosage, cautions and preparation — are being written record by record, and a page shows a section only when there is something real to put in it. An entry with nothing but names is an entry whose clinical content has not been written yet, not an entry whose herb has nothing to say.
Nothing here is generated or inferred. If the catalogue does not know something, the page is silent about it rather than filling the gap.
This is a reference for practitioners and students. The information here is provided for educational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice.
Chinese herbal medicine is dispensed to a person, not to a condition: dose, combination and suitability depend on an individual assessment that a reference page cannot make. Several herbs in this catalogue are toxic, restricted, or unsafe in pregnancy. If you are not trained to prescribe them, consult someone who is.