• Journal of Korean Medical classics
• /
• v.27 no.1
• /
• pp.99-109
• /
• 2014

Objectives : The concepts of many Korean medicine terms have changed for a long time and cumulatively been recorded in later medicine literatures. And, the same terms have very often been used for different meanings depending on context. Methods : This study was performed so that conceptual magnitude of Korean medicine terms could intuitively be recognized for the purpose of quantization. Results : This study was performed under the premise that terms used in old literatures of Korean medicine are related mostly to treatments that could immediately be reverted to types of medical herbs used. Through this, conceptual magnitude of terms was quantified by the method that frequency of medical herbs used for treatment was changed to numerical values. For this, data of "Compilation of Formulas and Medicinals Addendum" were used. First, after 'specificity' of each medicine herb corresponding to representative disease symptoms was calculated, medians in the set were selected, and 'values of conceptual magnitude' for representative disease symptoms were calculated. Conclusions : As a result, if disease symptoms are diverse, concept range is diachronically changed greatly, and specific disease symptoms of great conceptual difference are included, value of conceptual magnitude was great. Meanwhile, if disease factor and treatment are singular or limited to several types, and many medical herbs with high specificity are used, value of conceptual magnitude was less.