Abstract
The first medical text in which detailed treatments of diseases by combinations of materia medica are mentioned is the "Shanghanzabinglun(傷寒雜病論)". True meaning of the combinations of materia medica used in this text lies in the fact that the efficacy of a prescription transcends that of the linear sum of each materia medica. This kind of concept regarding the composition of a prescription has come to contribute to the formation of theories in prescriptionology; However, it is difficult to analyze and interpret the meaning of each prescription separately because of differences in interpreting methods, points of view, and terminologies used by members of different academical branches. Therefore, it is desirable that one should understand a prescription as having been modified from a basic prescription, and then bring the interactions of ingredients into the picture, finally understanding the efficacy and chief virtues of the targeted prescription. Nevertheless, with the massive information of prescriptions, which exist in the format of texts, it is impossible to efficiently take advantage of prescription analyzing methods, and therefore the range of analysis extremely restricted. In order to overcomes these weaknesses, this paper suggests that object-oriented prescription database be constructed and that a search program for education and research that could facilitate an efficient access to the database be developed as well.
