The term chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has been well known and the disease extensively studied for more than a decade in China, but only recently has great progress been made in the epidemiology and management of this highly prevalent disease in this country. Historically, beginning in the early 1960s, long before the definition of COPD was widely accepted，a great number of studies that included traditional Chinese medicine had been performed on chronic bronchitis, emphysema, and related respiratory failure and cor pulmonale.