Number of Herbs

[Guest guest]

In , " " <zrosenbe@s...> wrote:

> To me, a prescription doesn't need 30 herbs to work on a complex

> pattern, 9-15 should be enough in most cases. I am open to the

idea of Jim's 30 ingredient prescriptions, but I also think that

prescriptions should be as refined and elegant as possible. This

means 'no waste', no unnecessary ingredients.

 

 

Z'ev:

 

While I don't disagree with your basic statements, we need not

reduce this conversation to the dull generalizations of " most

cases. " You are correct: most herbal formulas, even in the Chinese

literature that I've read (probably less than 200 herbal texts),

appear to fall within your " 9-15 " statistical limit. But there are

also many wonderful and interesting larger formulas.

 

Larger herb formulas shouldn't necessarily

imply " waste, " " unnecessary " ingredients, of " lack of elegance. "

Many of the famous and highly effective formulas attributed to Hua

T'o are large. And as I mentioned earlier, 35% of Shaolin formulas

are larger formulas---a number of them highly effective and famous

at least in martial art circles. Larger formulas can also imply a

larger vision of CM. Keep in mind, both Hua T'o and the Shaolin

monks developed formulas in a wide variety of sizes. Their lives and

training depended on the full spectrum of possibilities that such a

variety of formulas offered.

 

With all the previous talk of the presumed importance of the

original Chinese literature, I'm at a loss to understand why there

are those that are eager to ignore, or dismiss outright, an

important portion of it. I suspect that teh root of the problem lies

in the way that current TCM reduces many complicated problems to the

same rudimentary diagnostic patterns. The adage 'one treatment for

many disease, many treatments for one disease' is used to

rationalize and justify much of TCM; but, in my opinion, it also

obscures and discounts much of the rich heritage available in CM.

 

 

Jim Ramholz