The
identification of traditional Chinese medicine has undergone a relatively long history following the development of traditional
Chinese medicine.In this paper,the history of the development of the
identification of traditional Chinese medicine is divided into three historical stages according to the commonly used identification methods. The first stage covers from the formation of traditional Chinese medicine till around 19 th century.During this stage,the empirical methods of human beings were mainly applied. The second stage covers from 19 th century till the first 50 years of 20 th century.During this stage,four main identification methods including source identification,trait identification,microscopic identification and physicochemical identification gradually came into being. The third stage covers from the 1950s till nowadays.During this stage,following the rapid development of interrelated disciplines,many modern identification methods,mainly instrumental analysis methods,have been applied,which make the identification of traditional Chinese medicine develop more rapidly.These methods include as following:1.Chromatography:including thin layer chromatography (TLC),thin layer chromatography scan (TLCS),high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC),gas chromatography (GC) and gas chromatography mass spectrum (GC MS);2.Spectroscopic methods:including ultraviolet
spectrophotometry (UV),derivative spectrophotometry (DS),infrared spectrophotometry (IR),fluorescent spectrophotometry (FP),nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) and mass spectrometry (MS);3.X ray diffraction (XRD);4.Differential thermal analysis (DTA);5.Molecular bilogical technique:including polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD);6.Scanning electronic microscope (SEM);7.Computer image analysis (CIA);8.Electrophoresis (EP) including capillary electrophoresis;9.Multivariate regression analysis (MRA);10.Electronic analysis (EA) including oscillopolarographic discrimination (OD) and isoelectric point method (IP).11.X ray diffraction fluorescent spectrophotometry (XRF);12.Artificial neural networks (ANN). This paper can be used for reference for those who are engaged in the identification,teaching,scientific research and new drug research of traditional Chinese medicine.