Chinese Medical Database for information at your fingertips

• Chinese Medical Database is the largest English-language database of Chinese medicine, derived from the work of Nigel Wiseman and colleagues over more than 40 years. Filling several thousand pages of printed text, it covers all aspects of Chinese medicine, including basic theory, diagnosis, acumoxatherapy, and medical therapy, as well as the Shāng Hán Lùn and Jīn Guì Yào Lüè (SH&JG) classics.
• CMD serves as a reference tool and as an all-in-one set of textbooks allowing systematic study of basic theories, acupuncture, and medicinal therapy, as well as Chinese medical Chinese. All parts of the database are interconnected by clickable cross-references. Hence, you can click on a point name to access the monograph in the acupoints database or click on medicinal name to access the monograph in medicinals database, and from there gain access to all lines of the Shāng Hán Lùn where it appears.
• CMD is compiled almost entirely from primary Chinese-language sources, in terminology consistently related to the Chinese through simplified and traditional Chinese characters as well as accented Pinyin (without typing accents).

Structure of the Chinese Medical Database

This database is divided into 8 sections:

• Study: The items in this section are dictionary entries arranged to form a comprehensive and detailed textbook of Chinese medicine, covering basic theory, physiology, pathology, diagnosis, and treatment, as well as translation methodology and language-learning materials.
• Dictionary: Over 7,000 Chinese terms with Pīnyīn transcription, English translation, definitions, and other information.
• Terms: 30,000 or more Chinese terms with Pīnyīn transcription and English translation, as well as links to other tables and external character animations.
• Acupoints: 400 or so channel and nonchannel points with location, classical location, local anatomy, indications, traditional indications, needling depth, stimulus, and point groups they belong to, and the meanings of their Chinese names.
• Medicinals: 6,000 medicinals and folk medicines with Chinese, English, and Latin pharmacognostic names, their properties (nature, flavor, channel entry), actions, indications, etc., with links to Jiāo Shù-Dé’s Ten Lectures on the Use of Medicinals for over 300 items, as well to the Shāng Hán Lùn and Jīn Guì Yào Lüè.
• Formulas: 2,000 formulas, with sources, actions, indications, warnings, rationale, and variations, with links Jiāo Shù-Dé’s understanding of over 150 formulas and their derivatives or variants.
• SH&JG: Shāng Hán Lùn and Jīn Guì Yào Lüè, sister classics of medicinal therapy by Hàn Dynasty medical scholar Zhāng Jī, incorporated into a single SQL table to allow searches through the original texts.
• Jiāo: Jiāo Shù-Dé’s Ten Lectures on the Use of Medicinals, Ten Lectures on the Use of Formulas, and Case Studies on Pattern Identification.
• Self-test: Flashcard-style self-test questions are currently in production and will be added shortly.

How to perform searches

1. Choose which section of the database you wish to use, i.e., Dictionary, Terms, Acupoints, Medicinals, or Formulas, SH&JG or Jiao from the menu bar the top of the page.
2. Select the desired search mode.
   • For all tables except Terms, the default selection is headword only, which you can change to headword and text. Your search string can be English, Chinese (simplified or traditional), or Pīnyīn. Note that there are certain language limitations when searching for medicinals (e.g., when searching for medicinals in the ingredients section of the Formulas table, only simplified Chinese will yield results).
   • When searching in the Terms table, which has a large number of entry terms but no text, you select either English or Chinese/Pīnyīn. This limits the range of each search to ensure higher speed.
3. Key in your search word in the search box and press enter. Write Pīnyīn without accents, separated or joined up.
4. Search results appear in two sections: terms containing the search string (click on to see results) and terms starting with the search string (where results already appear). Click on the item you want to see.
5. You can also narrow your search results by adding a term in the filter.
6. The back button on the top bar of the browser allows you to navigate to the previous page you were viewing.
7. Items appearing in the brightest color are links to other parts of the database.
8. Ctrl+F accesses a search box to find things within one entry (web page).
9. Failure of a search to yield any result means that you are searching for a term not found in the database. Try using a generic term to find what you want. For instance, if you search for early periods, you will not find a result because this concept is not labeled as such in the database. But if you search for the generic term menstruation, you can follow the link to menstrual irregularities, where you will find a list of conditions, including advanced menstruation, which is our term for early periods.
10. More details are provided in each section, where you can click on Need help using this section?

Cross-reference links

Copious links are provided throughout the database.

• Diagnostic terms (symptom, disease, pattern names), book titles, and other general terms occurring in entries are linked to the Dictionary table. Medicinal names, formula names, and acupoint names are linked to their respective tables.
• The names of medicinals and formulas are also linked to and SH&JG and Jiāo tables.
• For those studying the Chinese language, the simplified Chinese characters in the entry heads are linked to the Terms table, where external links to stroke order animations are provided.

Study topics

Select Study from the menu bar at the top of the page to find a full set of texts covering basic theories, as well as copious material for those learning Chinese medical Chinese and interested in translation theory.

Sources

The Chinese Medical Database includes material from the following English-language texts compiled almost exclusively from primary Chinese sources:

• Fundamentals of Chinese Medicine, Wiseman N., Ellis A., & Zmiewski P., Paradigm Publications, 1985.
• Fundamentals of Chinese Acupuncture, Ellis A., Wiseman N., & Boss K., Paradigm Publications, 1988.
• Grasping the Wind: An Exploration into the Meaning of Chinese Acupuncture Point Names, Ellis A., Wiseman N., Boss K., Paradigm Publications, 1989.
• English-Chinese Chinese-English Dictionary of Chinese Medicine, Wiseman N. (魏迺杰), Hunan Science and Technology Press, 1995.
• Practical Dictionary of Chinese Medicine, Wiseman N., Féng Yè (馮曄), Paradigm Publications, 1998.
• Ten Lectures on the Use of Medicinals From the Personal Experience of Jiāo Shù-Dé, translated by Mitchell C., Shelley Ochs S., Marnae Ergil M., and Nigel Wiseman N., annotated by Andrew Ellis A, Paradigm Publications, 2006.
• Ten Lectures on the Use of Formulas From the Personal Experience of Jiāo Shù-Dé, translated by Damone B., Helme M., Kuchinski L., Mitchell C., and Nigel Wiseman N., Paradigm Publications, 1998.
• Case Studies on Pattern Identification From the Personal Experience of Jiāo Shù-Dé, Kuchinski L., edited by Nigel Wiseman N., and Eric Brand, Paradigm Publications, 1998.
• Shāng Hán Lùn: On Cold Damage, Mitchell C., Feng Y., Wiseman N., Paradigm Publications, 1999.
• Concise Chinese Materia Medica, Brand E., Wiseman N., Paradigm Publications, 2008.
• Chinese Medical Characters, Volumes 1-5, Zhāng Y., Wiseman N., Paradigm Publications, 2003–2015.
• Jīn Guì Yào Lüè: Essential Prescriptions of the Golden Cabinet, Wiseman N., Wilms S., Paradigm Publications, 2013.
• Chinese Medicine: Theories of Modern Practice, Wiseman N., Wilms S., Paradigm Publications, 2021.
• A Chinese Medical Reference, (e-book), Wiseman N., Brand E., Paradigm Publications, 2022.
• Chinese Medicine: The Ideas That Shaped It, Wiseman N., Wilms S., Paradigm Publications, 2024.

Contributors

The main author and chief editor of this database is Nigel Wiseman. Substantial contributions to parts of the text were made by Paul Zmiewski, Andrew Ellis, Elke Johnson, Ken Boss, James Féng Yè (馮曄), Craig Mitchell, Shelley Ochs, Marnae Ergil, Bob Damone, Lynn Kuchinski, Michael Helme, Guō Píng (郭平), Sabine Wilms, Eric Brand, Chao Chia-Lin (趙家麟), Nicolas Berger (see Sources above).

Acknowledgments

The material contained in this database would have never been possible without the support of Li Cheng-Yu 李政育, P. U.Unschuld (文樹德), Hen-Hong Chang (張恆鴻), Hung-Chien Ha (哈鴻潛), Zhēng Jīnshēng (郑金生), Wáng Yìfāng (王一方), and Chén Kějì (陈可冀), and Jiann-Jong Shen (沈建忠).

A special thank-you goes to Paradigm Publications / Redwing Books for allowing the use of copyrighted materials, and for his support in projects over decades.

Special thanks to Legendary Herbs for providing CMD’s payment system.

Thanks also to Jimmy Roy, Matthew Preiser, Eric Brand, and Kamrujjaman Tapu for the development of the website.

Sponsorships and donations welcome!

With the goal of making this database free of charge for users, we accept sponsorships and donations.