众所周知,人类最初是依靠天然界的动植物治疗疾病的,如金鸡纳树皮治疗疟疾,鸦片用于镇痛等等。因此人类很早就研究动植物的活性物质,随后才进入人工合成药物的阶段。在上世纪和本世纪中叶,测定天然产物的分子结构全靠化学反应,诸如降解、脱氢等,需要消耗大量的样品和漫长的时间。如吗啡包括合成工作在内前后达100多年(1805～1952年)。后来有了紫外和红外等仪器才加快了步伐,可以数年计。如降压药利血平从提取、分离、测定结构到全合成仅5年左右(1952～1957年)。近年来新的物理仪器不断问世,特别是质子核磁共振、~(13)C核磁共振、质谱和X-光晶体衍射等,使化学结构测定的样品达到毫克水平,时间可以周计,无论在耗量上和时间上均已不可同日而语了。为了适应当前中草药研究的广泛开展,本文结 As we all know, humans originally depended on natural animals and plants to treat diseases such as cinchona bark for malaria and opium for pain relief. Therefore, humans studied the active substances of plants and animals very early and only then entered the stage of synthetic drugs. In the last century and the middle of this century, the molecular structure of natural products was determined by chemical reactions such as degradation, dehydrogenation, etc., which required the consumption of a large amount of sample and a long time. Such as morphine, including synthesis work before and after more than 100 years (1805 ~ 1952). Later, with the UV and infrared instruments to speed up the pace can be counted for years. Such as blood pressure drug reserpine from the extraction, separation, determination of the structure to the total synthesis of only about 5 years (1952 ~ 1957). In recent years, new physical instruments have been continuously introduced, especially proton nuclear magnetic resonance, ~(13)C nuclear magnetic resonance, mass spectrometry and X-ray crystal diffraction, etc., enabling the determination of the chemical structure of the sample to milligram level, and the time can be counted, regardless of consumption. Both quantity and time are no longer comparable. In order to adapt to the current widespread development of Chinese herbal medicine research, this article concludes that