On 2012-02-28, at 1:27 PM, Axel Wachtler wrote:
> What I have seen in the current used TCM software is, that they have implemented a kind of lexica. In simple words they have the plant
> name (latin, english, german, pinjin), a description what the plant
> does and literature references. On the first view the information is
> organized like a wikipedia for med. drugs and herbs. A free data base would be very helpfull here. Technically, the descriptions of the plants should have a trust level, so one or more readers/authors should sign the article or parts of it if they agree. Additionally there should be the option of allowing different parallel descriptions of one drug, because there will be sometimes different interpretations all over the world or the description is in different languages available.
> I've just found that one university of Honkong started a page with such
> a collection, but without signed information.
I imagine that if the latin name of a plant (genus, species) is sufficiently distinct and identifying for its medicinal properties, one might even start to think about it as the equivalent of an
International Nonproprietary Name (INN)
although the analogy may break, because surely it will make a big difference if we are talking the plant root, stem, leaf, seeds, berries etc not to mention the method(s) of preparation and therefore something more than the just the name may be required to be the product's "unique identifier".