About Herbapedia

Mission

Herbapedia is a comprehensive encyclopedia developed by the International Society of Phytomedicine (SIPM) to provide accurate, evidence-based information about medicinal plants and natural health supplements.

History

Herbapedia was first created in the year 2000 by Vita Green Health Products Ltd and designed by the late Hillman Curtis, when there was no publicly-accessible, medically-curated and accurate set of scientific, herbal knowledge for the public.

In addition to the over 100 herbal ingredients documented, a key feature of the Herbapedia was its high-quality vector images, entirely drawn from scratch to illustrate to the reader how particular herbal medicine plants look like.

The Herbapedia was developed and funded by Vita Green and hosted for public consumption since then. As a founding member of the SIPM, Vita Green has given permission to the SIPM to reproduce and expand the data set for open use, and the SIPM is grateful to continue the baton of the Herbapedia.

Our Content

Our database covers five main categories:

  • Chinese Herbs - Traditional Chinese medicinal plants and fungi
  • Western Herbs - European and North American herbal medicines
  • Vitamins - Essential vitamins for human health
  • Minerals - Important dietary minerals and trace elements
  • Nutrients - Beneficial compounds and supplements

Approach

We bridge traditional wisdom with modern scientific research. Each entry combines historical and traditional uses with contemporary scientific findings, providing a balanced perspective on natural health remedies.

Ontology Architecture

Herbapedia uses a preparation-centric ontology where HerbalPreparation is the central entity. This document describes the data model for developers and data architects.

Core Entity: HerbalPreparation

The HerbalPreparation entity represents a processed medicinal material ready for therapeutic use. It serves as the pivot connecting source materials (plants, animals, minerals) to system-specific therapeutic profiles (TCM, Western, Ayurveda, etc.).

Source Materials

Preparations are derived from four types of source materials:

  • botany:PlantSpecies - Botanical sources - medicinal plants, fungi, algae
  • herbapedia:ZoologicalSource - Animal sources - chitosan (crustacean shells), cod liver oil, etc.
  • herbapedia:MineralSource - Mineral sources - zinc, calcium, magnesium compounds
  • herbapedia:ChemicalSource - Chemical sources - synthesized vitamins, isolated compounds

Medicine System Profiles

Each preparation may have one or more system profiles describing its therapeutic properties according to different traditional medicine systems:

  • tcm:TCMProfile - Traditional Chinese Medicine profile with nature, flavor, meridians, category
  • western:WesternHerbalProfile - Western Herbalism profile with actions, organ affinities
  • ayurveda:AyurvedaProfile - Ayurveda profile with rasa, guna, virya, vipaka, dosha effects
  • unani:UnaniProfile - Unani/Unani profile with temperament (mizaj) and elements
  • mongolian:MongolianProfile - Mongolian Traditional Medicine profile with elements, roots, tastes

Reference Data

Each medicine system defines its own taxonomy of reference terms with multilingual labels (prefLabel):

  • TCM: tcm:Meridian, tcm:Nature, tcm:Flavor, tcm:Category
  • Western: western:Action, western:Organ, western:System
  • Ayurveda: ayurveda:Rasa, ayurveda:Guna, ayurveda:Virya, ayurveda:Vipaka
  • Unani: unani:Temperament, unani:Element
  • Mongolian: mongolian:Element, mongolian:Root, mongolian:Taste

Entity Relationships

The ontology uses RDF-style relationships to connect entities:

HerbalPreparation
├── derivedFrom → SourceMaterial (PlantSpecies | ZoologicalSource | ...)
├── hasTCMProfile → TCMProfile
│   ├── hasNature → tcm:Nature
│   ├── hasFlavor → tcm:Flavor[]
│   ├── entersMeridian → tcm:Meridian[]
│   └── hasCategory → tcm:Category
├── hasWesternProfile → WesternHerbalProfile
│   ├── hasAction → western:Action[]
│   └── hasOrganAffinity → western:Organ[]
├── hasAyurvedaProfile → AyurvedaProfile
│   ├── hasRasa → ayurveda:Rasa[]
│   ├── hasGuna → ayurveda:Guna[]
│   ├── hasVirya → ayurveda:Virya
│   └── hasVipaka → ayurveda:Vipaka
├── hasUnaniProfile → UnaniProfile
│   └── hasTemperament → unani:Temperament
└── hasMongolianProfile → MongolianProfile
    ├── hasElement → mongolian:Element[]
    └── hasTaste → mongolian:Taste[]

Internationalization (i18n)

All ontology terms use SKOS prefLabel for multilingual support. Labels are stored in the data repository (data-herbapedia), not in the application code:

{
  "@id": "meridian/lung",
  "prefLabel": {
    "en": "Lung Meridian",
    "zh-Hant": "肺經",
    "zh-Hans": "肺经"
  }
}

Serialization Format

All data is stored as JSON-LD with proper @context for semantic interoperability. The @context files define prefixes for tcm:, ayurveda:, western:, unani:, mongolian:, and botany: vocabularies.

Disclaimer

The content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Please always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.

About SIPM

The International Society of Phytomedicine (SIPM) is dedicated to advancing the scientific understanding and responsible use of medicinal plants worldwide.

Visit SIPM website →