Abstract
The formulations of traditional medicines used in China, India and Japan have been constructed to expect desirable treatment of diseases. The principles are based on the interaction of several crude drugs or several ingredients even in a single crude drug. Therefore, the apparent combined effects are equivalent to the sum of effects of those components which underwent addition, potentiation, subtraction and modulation. Here we provide hypothetical mathematical formulas to explain the theory of combinatorics, which successfully proved the pharmacological effects of processed single herbs and the basis of polyherbal therapies. The constructed formulas will contribute to designing new formulations together with seeking novel patterns of pharmacological actions of traditional medicines or with understanding of the mechanisms behind them.
