A new understanding of prescription.

To promote the development of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), it is necessary to innovate the traditional prescription. It is feasible to use one or several components to substitute TCM, which can be regarded as a process of discarding the dregs and preserving the essential components. In this way, traditional prescription can be converted into various combinations of pharmacological ingredients deriving from several TCMs. Furthermore, some of pharmacological ingredients should be modified to increase their efficacy. It is practical to select the main structural unit with specific substituents having strong pharmacological activity. After the innovation mentioned above, the prescription will evolve into a variety of modified components having distinct pharmacological activity, and this is the novel integration of active ingredients.