Background and Purpose: According to the increasing prevalence of cardiovascular diseases and further tendency of public and medical doctors to the traditional and complementary medicine, review and reassessing of cardiac drugs specially cardiotonics will take more importance and indication. In this article we try to complain the overall meaning of cardiotonic and its mechanisms of action from the viewpoint of Iranian traditional medicine.

Material and Methods: This is a library review article which has been carried out using modern medical references, the main texts of Iranian traditional medicine such as "Al-Qanoon fi al-Tibb" (The Canon of Medicine), "Al-Resaleh fi Al-Adviyah Al-ghalbyah", “Makhzan-al-Adviyah”, “Gharabadin-e-kabir”, “As-Shamel fi as-SINA'A at-Tibbiyya”, Daruha-yi Qalbi (Cardiac drugs) and databases including Google scholar and PubMed.

Results: According to the definition of tonic drug (modulator of an organ consistency and temperament for prevention of flowing pathogenic fluids to the organ) and the effect of cardiotonic drugs, it was shown that constancy of an organ texture is achieved by astringency ("ghabz"), strengthening the mass of heart, desiccation, dryness and stiffness; while moderation of spirit consistency is obtained through being aromatic, astringency, attenuation, "tanshif" (sponge like action), increase of generation of spirit, and cleansing of spirit. Moderation of the heart temperament is obtained through warming the cold and cooling the hot heart and desiccating the moist of the heart with moist temperament. Besides, two other features were mentioned ("Belkhasyah" (by character) and "theriaqiyat") that were not related to the temperament of drug and could be considered intrinsic properties.

Conclusion: According to the causative agent of disease and through finding specific features of each drug, traditional medicine practitioners can highlight the place of simple cardiotonics in the treatment of heart diseases. Also, due to the abundance and diversity of cardiotonics in traditional medical books, new cardiotonic medications can be proposed and be tested.