Traditional Chinese medicine possesses a unque theoretical system, rich clinical experience and excellent clinical effects. It has made great contributions to the health of mankind. Either now or future, based on its own potential, TCM will play and increasingly important role in promoting the development of a world medicine, and more attention of peoples in the world. More and more international  friends are interested in TCM and they are studying and practicing TCM throughout the world. In order to overcome the Ianguage barrier and to understand TCM correctly, they are eager for a set of TCM textbooks. They want these textbooks to be suitable for use in colleges of higher learning and accurate in English translation. 

     Beijing University of Chinese Medicine and Pharmacology is a key university among the TCM teaching institutions of higher learning in China. The university began to enroll foreign students in 1957. Since then, about one thousand foreign students coming from more than 70 countries and regions in the world graduated from it. At present, there are nearly 300 foreign students from 41 countries and regions studying at the university. Our university has accumulated rich experience in teaching foreign students and understands their special needs in the study of TCM. These years of practice in teaching has greatly helped the compilation of the TCM textbooks.

          The authorities at our university highly evaluate the task of compilating and translating the TCM textbook series and organized a special working group of experienced professors and other professionals to compile the series. Based on the fifth edition of relevant all-China TCM textbooks of higher learning, the TCM textbooks absorb the latest achievements of scientific research in TCM, lay more stress on logicality, scientificality and practicality, make every effort to contain more information and to build a rational framework of the content in an understandable and readable manner. This TCM textbook series is suitable for both foreign and Chinese students and all those who are interested in TCM, both at home and abroad.      

In order to ensure academic standards and an accurate English translation of this textbook series, we invited well-known TCM experts Prof, Wang Yuchuan and Prof. Yan Zhenghua to examine and review the Chinese language part of the series, and invited American medical and English language experts Fang Nengyu, George Francis Mciean and Concetta Maria Pirrone to review the English translation.

The basic theories of traditional Chinese medicine is the most important part of Chinese medicine. Providing the foundation and guidance needed to study and master the necessary skills and knowledge required for a well rounded medical background. This book principally keeps consistency with the official authorative textbook of Basic Theories of Traditional Chinese Medicine for advanced college of traditional Chinese medicine and pharmacology. In order to make this book more comprehensive information from the selftaught series compiled by the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine and Pharmacoloy and several other colleges were used.

The basic theorise include introduction, yin and yang theory, the five elements theory, visceral manifestations, qi, blook, body fluid and vitality, meridians, etiology and pathogenesis, pathological mechanism, principles of treatment and prevention, etc. In order to avoid unnecessary repetition, the chapter on meridians left out the distribution and location of these pathways. Within the textbook Acupuncture and Moxibustion, you will find a more comprehensive explanation regarding location and distribution.

Finlly, any correction to errors and suggestions concerning its contents and format will be appreciated. We will take them into careful consideration in the next edition, and we believe that with such help, these TCM textbooks will be much improved in the next edition.

During the compilation of the TCM textbooks series, we have been greatly helped by the relevant official departments and experts and we would like to express our profound thanks to them.

                                    The compiler and translator

                                      February, 1995