This study covers the historical aspects of the turmeric and curcuma only in detail on the medicinal uses, supported by references to the medical texts. And the result is as follows: 1. Turmeric and curcuma are rhizomatous herbaceous perennial plants of the ginger family, but both produced on the same herb. The rhizome is considered turmeric while the tuber is considered curcuma. 2. Turmeric is the round, oval, or ovate, and scutiform rhizome. 3. Curcuma is yellowish externally, internally more or less orange-yellow passing into reddish-brown. The tuber has a round and cuspidate appearance. The smell is aromatic, somewhat analogous to ginger. 4. Turmeric is somewhat analogous to curcuma in shape, but turmeric is pungent and bitter in taste, warm and intoxious in property, and yellow in color, acting on the spleen and liver channels and governing the gi of the blood while curcuma is pungent and bitter in taste, cold and intoxious in property, red in color, acting on the heart and pericardium channels and governing the blood. 5. Turmeric is referred to zedoary, sliced turmeric, old jaundice, precious aromatic, and ovate rhizoma, and curcuma is referred to radix curcuma, curcuma aromatica, and cicada-belly curcuma