Although it is difficult to calculate just how many types of animal ingredients are used in Chinese medicine, most of the more commonly accepted ones can be found in the Bible of Chinese pharmacology, the Pen-ts'ao kang-mu, or Compendium of Materia Medica, by Li Shih-chen of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644).
That book mentions nearly 450 kinds. While quite a few are gentle dietary supplements, even more of them are bitter-tasting but supposedly potent medications, each with different properties and effects.
Chiao-Mu Hsu, a professor who has studied the subject for many years, once classified the animal ingredients used in Chinese medicine into 41 major categories. The curative powers of each ingredient are described in the Pen-ts'ao in detail.
The traditional medicines that have been passed down to the present day are largely those that have been proved effective through the accumulated experience of Chinese doctors and patients over the ages, and their study has become an art and science in itself.
Among the vast array of ingredients used, some cannot be taken directly without proving poisonous, some cannot be stored without changing in nature, and some must be refined of various impurities and unusable portions, so that the majority require some kind of processing before use.
In collecting such a wide range of medicinal ingredients, our ancestors also gained a deeper understanding of ecology and the natural sciences, discovering, for example, how the properties of various ingredients varied according to the time of year in which they were obtained.
Around thirty to forty animal ingredients are still used in various Chinese medicines today, depending on the school or tradition adhered to.
Although there are discrepancies between the way they are used in folk remedies and the way they are described in traditional books of pharmacology, many animal medicinal ingredients have been confirmed as indeed being effective and remain in wide use today.
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