The prescriptions in traditional Chinese medicine are composed of one to ten kinds of Chinese medicines. But you should know it is not to simply add the medicines and mixed them together, but combined by following certain principles according to the conditions of the diseases. If you attend to Chinese culture class, teachers would tell you that whether the prescriptions are proper or not is decided by the cooperation of the property of medicines, which is very important to make the prescriptions effective.
As early as in ancient China, the doctors had researched and developed the prescriptions of curing various diseases. There were strict formulas and fixed names of the prescriptions in Formulas of Chinese Medicine in Han Dynasty. In the medical book named Treatise on Febrile and Miscellaneous Diseases written by Zhang Zhongjing, there are more than 300 prescriptions recorded. There are totally four parts in a whole prescription. But most prescriptions have the main medicine and adjuvant, which follow the principle of brief but effective.
Even though there are some principles in the compositions of prescriptions, doctors should add and reduce properly in accordance with the specific conditions. When you come to study Chinese in China, you may learn that this adjustment mainly in herbal medicines, compatibility of medicines, quantity adjustment and forms of medicines changing. The prescriptions in traditional Chinese medicines are a kind of skill hard to master because many aspects should be taken into consideration. The prescriptions made by ancient Chinese doctors are proved to have good curative effects.
Some experts ever made research on the prescription Wu Ling San made by famous doctor Zhang Zhongjing and found that it is effective only the medicines are taken by following the formula. The curative effect would be greatly influenced as long as they did a little adjustment in the original prescription. It shows that the doctors in ancient China have achieved a high progress in the research of herbal medicines.
One thing you may be curious about when you study Mandarin in China might be the forms of Chinese medicines. In clinical application, the main and common forms are herbal medicine decoction, pill, powder, ointment, medicinal liquor, tablet and njecta and so on. The invention of decoction was as early as in Shang Dynasty, greatly promoting the development of prescriptions in Chinese medicines. It became very popular in Zhou Dynasty.