What is the Herbal Medicines Compendium?

HMC is a freely available, online resource that provides standards for herbal ingredients used in herbal medicines. Standards are expressed primarily in monographs. A monograph contains general information including the definition of the herbal ingredient relative to the monograph title and then follows with a specification. The specification contains tests for critical quality attributes of the herbal ingredient and includes procedures and acceptance criteria. HMC employs validated analytical procedures for the tests of its monographs, using state-of-the-art techniques and allied reference materials. Additional analytical methods and approaches may be referenced in general chapters, which also are available online.