It uses the expertise of established botanists and covers a wide range of the herbal ingredients on the market. To the curious physician who wishes to learn more, it is a useful reference. However, I doubt this text will meet all the needs of the busy clinician. The emphasis is on the botanical characteristics of the herbs, and the book is often lacking relevant clinical data such as common trade names, dosage forms and dosage itself. The reader should be aware that the information sources are largely reliant on German and American literature, and hence of more relevance to European herbs.
Much less data is provided on Chinese herbs and the available literature is largely ignored.
The greatest hurdle for any reference of this sort is that most herbal medicines are consumed now in combination products, frequently consisting of many different herbs. Despite these weaknesses, the PDR for herbal medicines is a good foundation reference text that provides important background information on the major botanicals. The style of the book is reader friendly, with good indexing systems and useful summaries of the common uses for each herb. It is a useful and valuable reference tool.