Bulletin Spring‧Summer 2001

made into tiny pills. More advanced drug-making involves the extraction and amalgamation o f useful components f r o m different kinds of raw materials. A t the most sophisticated level, only the active ingredients o f medicinal materials are extracted and processed into medicine under strictly controlled conditions and in strictly specified proportions. To produce Chinese drugs in such a way is essentially to westernize or moderniz e Chinese medicine. A Pragmatic, Evidence-based Approach This step-by-step process of identifying the right medicinal materials or treatments for research, studying their effects and properties clinically, then extracting useful ingredients from medicinal material s to manufacture drug s w i l l lead to the modernization o f Chinese medicine. It is a pragmatic and evidence-based approach that all should adopt in the research and development of Chinese medicine. The feasibility of such an approach, however, hinges upon the availability of four kinds of facilities: a comprehensive database o f Chinese medicinal materials, a centre for authentication/quality control ， a venue for performing clinical trials, and a drug production department. The I CM is adequately equipped with all these facilities. A Comprehensive Database Since the early 80s, the University has been building a Chinese medicine database t o facilitate herbal research. It has also maintained close links w i t h other Chinese medicine research centres in different parts of the world and integrated their useful data into its own database. Jo date it has set up database pertaining to the safety and toxicity o f C h i n e s e m e d i c i n a l materials as well as databases for educational purposes. The Information Section o f the ICM w i l l wo rk towards enhancing t h e q u a l i t y a n d quantity of the existing databases and w i l l set up a website on Chinese medicine as the focal point of information exchange with the rest of the world. The Chinese Medicine Museum has over 2,500 samplesof Chinese medicinal material. The Chinese Medicine Library collects relevant journals, books,and other literature, largelyfrom the mainland, throughthe usual exchange channels as wellas by special arrangement. The M o d e r n i z a t i o n of Chinese M e d i c i n e 21