Steven Foster (1957-2022) was the author of Echinacea: Nature's Immune Enhancer and coauthor of the Peterson Field Guide to Medicinal Plants. An expert on the source plants of traditional Chinese medicine, Prof. Yue Chongxi (C.H. Yueh) has served since 1956 as pharmacognosist with the Institute of Chinese Materia Medica, Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Beijing.
Since 1949, China has worked to integrate traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and modern Western medicine, so that today both systems are used, along with a blend of the two. TCM is now researched using scientific methods at institutions such as the Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Beijing, where Chongxi is a pharmacognosist. He has also authored numerous works on herbal medicine. Foster has authored several herb books (and coauthored the Peterson Field Guide to Medicinal Plants, Houghton, 1990). The authors introduce Western readers to a blend of the two systems by describing about 50 plants used in TCM that are also known to Westerners as ornamentals, weeds, or herbs (e.g., day lilies, gardenias, honeysuckle, privet, and forsythia). They cover in detail the uses, history, dosage, descriptions, cultivation, and processing of each plant. An excellent resource for alternative medicine collections. --Library Journal (Wednesday, July 01, 1992) Katharine Galloway Garstka, Intergraph Corp., Huntsville, Ala.