Preliminary elaboration on emergent properties of traditional Chinese medicine

Plant and animal derived secondary metabolites are the result of initiative and adaptability of natural evolution due to its adaptive stress responses. Based on countless attempts, rational thinking and thousands of years of clinical practice by ancient Chinese, the medicines were endowed with advantages for the treatment of diseases and keeping health balance through multiple components combination instead of single components, featured by a complex system with emergent properties. The emergence of traditional Chinese medicine is because of the integration of various components and its complex interactions. How to obtain the new multicomponent entities with the biological equivalent effect is an important and fundamental work for TCM-based new drug research and development. Currently, recognition of TCM emergence and development of related technical methods needs strengthened, and the understanding and research of TCM require a systematic integration of the holistic and reductive methods.