With increased demands on medical health care due to societal developments, the sole dependence on modern medicine or Western medicine is clearly insufficient. Traditional Chinese medicine, once derided by many in the west, is now firmly in the global limelight due to its numerous advantages in preventing and treating diseases. Chinese medicine achieves its curative effects by making use of natural therapies such as animal and plant parts, which are of interest to many doctors and patients who are in favor of rectifying the entire state of the body.

For over two thousand years, Chinese medicinal formulas have been extensively used in China as the main technique to prevent and treat. The accordance of formula and disease pattern is the most specific, objective, stable, and recurrently effective aspect of treatment based on pattern differentiation, which will be introduced in this book as a reliable analytical method.

In this book, the fundamental concepts of Chinese medicine, methods of conducting pattern differentiation and composing principles of formulas, and integration of indispensable courses of Chinese medicine, such as basic theories, diagnostic methods, Chinese medicinals, formulas, treatment principles, internal medicine, and warm diseases will be discussed, opening a door for novices who are interested to learn more about Chinese medicine.

Through self-study of this book in a relatively short duration, it is our hope that the reader will be familiar with and preliminarily apply the basic theories of Chinese medicine and formulas in practice. This not only serves to prevent and treat diseases, but more importantly, contributes to the spread of traditional Chinese medicine.