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Received Aug 23, 2017; Accepted Nov 19, 2017
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1. Introduction
The term “Daodi” medicinal material has often been used in Chinese ethnopharmacology, and it is usually defined as a material that has been screened after a long period of traditional medical practice, growing in a specific region, and associated with a unique production method. Thus, materials with this label are recognized as having high quality and being clinically effective, and they are a reputable hallmark compared to other medicinal materials that are non-Daodi and so forth [1].
The Chinese word “Daodi” accentuates some distinctive higher quality for the medicinal material that grows in a certain area. The pristine exploration can be retraced to the late Eastern Han Dynasty (25–220 CE) with the advent of the earliest Chinese medicine document Divine Husbandman’s Classic of Materia Medica (Shennong Ben Cao Jing). In the Tang Dynasty (618–907 CE), the famous scholar Sun Simiao (the renowned Medicinal Material King) proposed in his classic work Thousand Gold Pieces (Qian jin fang) categorizing the original region for producing medicine in the contemporary administrative province and emphasized a concept that medicinal material is essentially embedded in soil. Sun Simiao first used the term “Dao,” which was the rudimentary concept that later became known as “Daodi.” The “Daodi” concept was initially defined in the Chinese medical classic Essentials of Materia Medica Distinctions (Ben cao pin hui jing yao) in the age of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644 CE) [2]. The medicinal selection methods had in fact been gradually formulated during medical practice for thousands of years and were established as a unique way to identify materials. Being supported by profound Chinese medical theory, this method is still significant in modern times. Furthermore, the Daodi materials are the most thoroughly investigated materials, and they represent a large amount of the market with tremendous economic value. It is reported that there are 200 Daodi materials out of the 500 traditional medicinal materials, yet Daodi materials contribute approximately 80% to the overall usage [3].
Chinese herbal medicine has been used in China for over 2000 years...