With the re-emergence of the TCM market in recent years, the question of whether TCM is safe or not has become a topic of great concern. Some people think that Chinese medicine is purely natural, non-toxic or less toxic, and safer. However, in recent years, Chinese medicine outside of China has been frequently detected as exceeding heavy metal standards or containing toxic ingredients, causing public anxiety. There are three different understandings of “toxicity of Chinese medicine” in traditional Chinese medicine: First, “poison” means medicine: as early as the Zhou Dynasty, “poison” and “medicine” were not distinguished and were mixed up as “medicine”. In the early Zhou Dynasty, “poison” and “medicine” were not distinguished, and were mixed up as “poison”. Until the Ming Dynasty, there were still some doctors who said that poison is medicine. Secondly, “poison” refers to the bias of the drug: it refers to the strength, rigidity and flexibility of the medicine. The ancients believed that the reason why Chinese medicine can cure diseases is to use the bias of Chinese medicine to remove the evil and help the positive, to correct the bias of the body’s qi, blood, yin and yang, so as to restore the balance and thus achieve the purpose of curing diseases. Thirdly, “poison” refers to toxic side effects: some drugs are strong in nature and have severe effects, which can easily cause adverse reactions and damage to the human body after use. As opposed to the former broad sense of “poison”, this adverse reaction is a narrow sense of “toxic” nature. The current 2010 edition of the Pharmacopoeia of the People’s Republic of China (referred to as the Chinese Pharmacopoeia) (a) contains 616 varieties of Chinese herbal medicines, and the classification of toxic Chinese medicines recorded in it is still based on the experience of the herbs of the past generations, and is divided into three levels of major toxicity, toxicity, and minor toxicity, with a total of more than 80 kinds. According to modern Chinese medicine theory, toxicity is the serious adverse effect and damage produced by drugs to the body, and is a performance used to reflect the safety of drugs. Toxic reactions can cause damage to organs and tissues, cause dysfunction, pathological changes to the body, and even death. It is now generally accepted that poisonous drugs are those with strong toxicity and pharmacological effects, small safety range (the therapeutic amount is close to the poisonous amount or lethal amount), and are prone to toxic reactions under improper application or even normal usage dosage. The complete concept of modern Chinese medicine toxicity should also include acute, subacute toxicity, chronic toxicity and special toxicity such as carcinogenic, mutagenic, teratogenic, addictive, etc. It is widely recognized that “medicine” is a cure for disease and a life saver, while “poison” is a disease and a life killer. But what is the relationship between toxicity and efficacy of Chinese medicine? Experts say that the two are opposites. Poison has both a negative side to the human body and a therapeutic side to the disease. Modern pharmacological research shows that the toxic substances of Chinese medicine can be divided into two cases: first, the toxic components are non-effective components, such as half asia, white fruit, celosia, etc. contain toxic components without therapeutic effect, and their removal can prevent poisoning; second, the toxic components are the effective components, that is, the toxicity to treat disease, such as Chuanwu, Cao Wu, snow on a branch of artemisia and other aconite drugs, the aconitum alkaloids are highly toxic; Strychnine, croton oil, etc. are both toxic ingredients and active ingredients, if they are removed, the effect will be lost, if the use of raw drugs will cause poisoning, only to reduce the content of its toxic substances to reduce toxicity and maintain a certain effectiveness. In fact, as long as the drugs have adverse reactions, of course, the rate of adverse reactions of Chinese medicine is much lower than that of Western medicine. 2012, the State Food and Drug Administration statistics show that the rate of adverse reactions of Western medicine is 81.6%, while the rate of adverse reactions of Chinese medicine is only 17.1%.