OBJECTIVE To investigate the syndrome-medicine rules of stroke prescriptions in the development of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), to explore the relationships between stroke syndromes and related medicines according to the historical timeline, and to enrich the understanding of the syndrome-medicine relationships of stroke in ancient books of TCM.
METHODS Considering the syndromes and related medicines in stroke prescriptions as research objects, time series similarity analysis was applied to screen stroke related prescriptions, and to extract syndromes and herbal medicines for obtaining standardized data. In addition, through programming our own R language, we calculated the morphological similarity distance (MSD) of syndromes and herbal medicines, and performed correlation and cluster analysis the MSD among syndromes, herbal medicines, and syndromes and herbal medicines, respectively.
RESULTS The syndrome-syndrome correlation analysis in the time series of stroke syndromes and related medicines showed three syndrome clusters, including stroke, apoplectoid syndrome, and acute stroke. The intersection of Chinese herbal medicines showed that the core herbal group of strokes had been formed from Dynasty 600 A.D.(Kaihuang 20th year of Sui Dynasty). The syndrome-medicine correlation analysis yielded some syndrome-medicine relationships with significant correlation, suggesting the formation of three clusters of symptom-medicine.
CONCLUSION The understanding of stroke in ancient books of TCM actually conceals three different perceptions of stroke, apoplectoid syndrome, and acute stroke, which is the meaning and value of excavating and studying ancient Chinese medical books with the help of scientific methods in today's scientific era. Thus, they deserve further attention.
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