[Liu Yue-heng and Shengcaoyaoxingfangpu (Guidebook of Chinese medicinal herbal properties)]

Liu Yue-heng, a famous doctor in Hunan province during Qing dynasty is the author of Shengcaoyaoxingfangpu (Guidebook of Chinese medicinal herbs) which systematically summed up the properties, flavors and channel tropism of the local herbal medicines and supplemented a lack knowledge of those. The book collected broadly folk and proved prescriptions and, combined with the author's clinical experiences. He collected and classified them as chapters, reflected geographical environment and folk custom culture with the distinctive regional characteristics of Huxiang. Its achievement is mainly embodied in the following aspects: it attached importance to herbs, highlighted Huxiang characteristics, the skilful use of folk and proved prescriptions and comprehensively differentiated etiology and pathogenesis, and proposed for doctors' professional ethics.