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Journal of Thai Traditional & Alternative Medicine Vol. 7 No. 2 May-August (Supplement) 2009 ÒÙÛ

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Database of Traditional Chinese Crude Drugs Widely Used in Thailand

1 1 1 1
Wirunya Trimethasil , Suppachai Tiyaworanant , Somchai Suriyakrai , Viboon Wattananamkul ,
2
Chavalit Chawviwat
1
Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Khon Kaen University, Khon Kaen, 40002, Thailand
2
Xin Tai Dong ( ) Traditional Chinese Medicines Shop, Udonthani, 41000, Thailand

Rationale: Traditional Chinese crude drugs are one of the more important modalities utilized in Tradi-
tional Chinese Medicine (TCM) which is recognized as an alternative medicine in Thailand however the main
obstacle in using Chinese medicines is language barrier especially, Chaozhou pattern, the most pronunciation
of Chinese language in Thailand which is very different from Pinyin, the Chinese phonetics widely used in TCM
database.
Objective: To establish a linguistic database of Traditional Chinese herbal medicine which provides the
picture, common name, Thai name, Chinese name (traditional Chinese characters, simplified Chinese charac-
ters, Mandarin pronunciation, and Chaozhou pronunciation), scientific name, part used of the plant medicinal
uses, and other scientific information of each herb including herbarium as well, and also provide the information
of Chinese medicines which derived from animals, fungi and minerals.
Methodology: This study was conducted from April to September, 2008 in municipality area of Muang
district, Udonthani province. One TCM shop was selected by survey method, including conversation, query,
observation and the interview by using both open-ended and close-ended questions. TCM data in linguistic
term were collected from selected TCM shop by interview and the other information of TCM crude drugs were
confirmed by using Chinese characters from Pharmacopoeia of the peopleûs republic of China, Chinese Herbal
medicine book, Chinese Materia Medica and papers in Medline particularly those publications in relevant
journals such as American Journal of Chinese Medicine, Journal of Chinese medicinal materials, Chinese
Medicine journal, Biomed central etc. Trilingual data (Chinese, Thai and English) of collected documents were
added into electronics form, the Microsoft Access program was selected as data management system of the
database.
Results: This database currently contains information for 214 herbs, 24 animals, 8 minerals and 3 fungi.
The value of this database was illustrated by collecting the labels of traditional medicines and identifying each
composition which appear on the labels.
Conclusion: This database is intended as an integrated information source about all aspects of traditional
Chinese crude drugs including picture, common name, Thai name, Chinese name (traditional Chinese charac-
ters, simplified Chinese characters, Mandarin pronunciation, and Chaozhou pronunciation), scientific name,
part used and other scientific information of each herb by using Microsoft Access program as data manage-
ment system. In addition, it is the first time that the published data on traditional Chinese crude drugs widely
used in Thailand with Chaozhou language, had been systematically analyzed by using a new database, and the
more information and data management are also expected to be developed to obtain more effective database.
Key words: Database, traditional Chinese medicine, Chinese herb, herbal medicine, crude drugs