As an important treasure for the research and development of new Chinese medicines, the classical prescriptions have a long medical history in China and are the summary of the clinical experience of the medical experts in the past dynasties. To support the research and development of classical prescriptions,relevant encouraging policies were issued by the state and relevant administrative departments. It is one of the key problems in the development process of classical prescriptions to verify and determine the processing methods of prescription herbal drugs. At present, there is no consensus or standard on such problems of classical prescriptions. In this paper, we sorted out and analyzed the related content of the herb processing for classical prescriptions, summarized the characteristics of the processing methods in the Catalogue of classical prescriptions(First Batch) and the problems faced in the textual research, and put forward some suggestions on the processing and textual research, including four research strategies: sorting out the mainstream methods for herbs in various periods of classical prescriptions, clarifying histological changes in the processing methods, determining the processing methods based on the drug processing characteristics, determining the processing methods based on the processing functions and identifying the processing methods according to the clinical efficacy and indication, so as to provide ideas and references for the research of processing methods involved in classical prescriptions.
Keywords: classical prescription; processing method; textual research; traditional Chinese medicine decoction pieces.