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My question is simple...

The correct measure word for

  • 中药
  • 西药

Appreciate your time!

2
  • 中药 and 西药 are generally uncountable terms. You don't say one bottle of Western medicine, do you?
    – 杨以轩
    Jan 13, 2014 at 1:59
  • 小马词典:药 CL:种,服药 at jukuu find many examples for "this/that+attributive+medicine" 这/那种+定语+药
    – user6065
    Aug 13, 2016 at 21:28

2 Answers 2

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剂 and 服(fù) are measure words for doses, although I believe that 服 is used only for Chinese medicine. You can use 丸 for pills, and I think that I have seen 片 for tablets. For other forms you might wish to describe it by weight or volume (esp. for liquids).

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  • 3
    Regarding 中药, people also say 一贴中药, that is, the raw herbs packed in a bag (which the patient will boil and drink for usually three times -- that is the dose for a day), one such bag is called 一贴.
    – user58955
    Jan 13, 2014 at 5:20
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a single package of a prescription of Chinese Medicine is called 一服(FU), because you would normally boil the whole package in a pot and drink the produced liquid at once. so one of 服's meaning is taking medicine for both western and chinese medicines. The units of each ingredient in the prescription normally are tael(两) and mace(钱)。

For western medicine, we use 片(pian) for pill, 粒(li) for capsule,and 支(zhi) for bottled liquids, 袋(dai) for pouch, and 板(ban) for foiled pills

this link is about ancient Chinese weighing metrics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_units_of_measurement

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