Digest Number 955

[Guest guest]

>

 

I had a patient who lost her sense of smell and taste after a car accident 10

years ago. Actually she did pretty well with acupuncture points LI 20, LI 4, Ren

23, LI 4, St. 5 and 6 etc. Not a full recovery but she was happy and I was

surprised how quickly she responded. About 10

treatments total if I remember correctly.

doug

 

>

> Thu, 04 Apr 2002 13:00:02 EST

> sjeevanjee

> SMELL LOSS

>

> Hello all,

> I have a case of a male 39 year old who lost his sense of smell and taste soon

after a back injury about 10 years ago. He also has phantom smells that

> range anyting from very foul (sewage) to pleasant (strawberries) and they

occur several times a month and can last for days sometimes.

>

> All the neurological tests at the the time showed no neural damage. In

general the patient appears to be in good health with generalised Qi and Yin

> deficiency. He had pneumonia at 6 and chicken pox ENCEPHALITIS at 13 which

kept him in bed for one year and made his spine very rigid.

>

> Has anyone treated sensory related problems like this? What kind of prognosis

can we expect?

> Salma

>

[Guest guest]

Z'ev, Ken, All

 

You are right, Colleen. Since the French 'got' acupuncture first, the

word tonification came from the French acupuncture literature.

 

>>Thanks Z'ev, I have always wondered about this.

 

 

You should stick to your guns, however. Incorrect language is

incorrect language.

 

>>I definitely agree with you on this in the case of tonify. In time it

may or may not have a proper place in the English language. This would

all depend on whether or not scholars could agree upon an accurate

definition. But what is important is allowing new words to come into the

language so that it remains a reflection of our culture. The Academie

Francaise governs the French language and has disallowed some new and

foreign words. (One that comes to mind is " fax " but facsimilie is ok).

Yet the words end up in the vernacular. So to prevent words from

entering the language may work in an academic setting but the nature of

language and culture is fluid and will take on new words or slang as

needed. (one example in English is " very unique " which I see in print

far too often now. It seems as though it has become acceptable to say or

write this.) I don't think we can prevent the use of the word tonify

unless every author, publisher, teacher and acupuncturist commits to no

longer using. Frankly, I don't think this is going to happen. The only

way to rectify this is to take to task a definition of " tonify " .

 

 

Tonification is not an accurate rendering of bu3.

 

I am not speaking to the translation of bu3 but more to the use of the

word " tonify " in the English language. I will leave translation to those

read, speak, and understand the subtleties of the Chinese language.

 

I had no idea this little reply would spark such discussion.

 

Colleen

[Guest guest]

Colleen,

>

> >>I definitely agree with you on this in the case of tonify. In

time it

> may or may not have a proper place in the English language. This

would

> all depend on whether or not scholars could agree upon an accurate

> definition. But what is important is allowing new words to come

into the

> language so that it remains a reflection of our culture.

 

I understand your sentiment, I think, but

I don't agree that this is what is important.

 

The knowledge base of Chinese medicine is

primarily contained in Chinese language

materials. What is important is developing

access to this knowledge base so that

people can benefit from it. The processes

of language do not tend to conform to

the various attempts to control them,

as you point out with the example of the

long standing French efforts to do so.

Language is a robust set of phenomena

that prove more or less invincible

to attempts to restrain that robustness.

To borrow a phrase from e.e.cummings

who was talking about love and not

language, no body can stop it, not

with all the policemen in the world.

 

[...] I don't think we can prevent the use of the word tonify

> unless every author, publisher, teacher and acupuncturist commits

to no

> longer using. Frankly, I don't think this is going to happen. The

only

> way to rectify this is to take to task a definition of " tonify " .

 

Proper instruction in the basic terms

of the subject would not so much prevent

this usage as tend to replace it with

a more well grounded one.

>

>

> Tonification is not an accurate rendering of bu3.

>

> I am not speaking to the translation of bu3 but more to the use of

the

> word " tonify " in the English language. I will leave translation to

those

> read, speak, and understand the subtleties of the Chinese language.

 

To be precise, the issue is not so much

the use of the word " tonify " to translate

bu3. If it were limited to this, it really

wouldn't matter as much. What matters is that

several Chinese words all tend to get

translated as bu3, so that one trying

to understand what, exactly an English

language passage that contains the word

" tonify " means is thwarted by this.

 

Z'ev pointed out that the differences

do indeed matter, at least in some

instances. Practitioners need to

know for themselves how to decide

when it matters and when it doesn't.

And they can only do this if they

know what the differences are.

 

The issue then becomes the equation

of this one English word with several

supposed Chinese cognates. There is

also the issue, as Z'ev pointed out

that the English word " tonify " brings

a whole set of associations into play

which do not necessarily correspond

to the associations and meanings of

the Chinese terms.

 

 

>

> I had no idea this little reply would spark such discussion.

 

Well, it's certainly an important point

for anyone practicing Chinese herbal

medicine to know what bu3 fa3 is all

about. And those who understand it

all to mean " tonify " are seriously

and needlessly hampered.

 

Ken