herbly

[Guest guest]

, Cara Frank <herbbabe@e...>

wrote:

As you know, I am nearly obsessed w/ the

> functions of the flavors: there I said it; the flavor is the function

 

To play devil's advocate, what if the flavors and other attributes of

herbs are somewhat arbitrary, varying as they do between texts and in

different eras. It is even acknowledged in modern materia medicas that

many herbs were assigned FLAVORS based on their already known FUNCTIONS

(xu and wang, pg. 2; also see Cinnabar Creek Notes from 5/02 by Andy Ellis,

chai hu monograph). Many thus do not actually have the taste assigned

to them (according to wang and xu, among others). We also need to

consider that one of the reasons the chinese do have so many spicy herbs

that disperse and sweet herbs that tonify is because that is what they

were looking for. Just like today's scientists, they used theory to

narrow their search parameters. But just because these rules seem to

apply so well to our materia medica does not mean they are universally

valid.

 

I am not sure we can extend this method of organizing herbs to the materia

medica of other cultures. that does not diminish the importance of this

method of organization for the practice of TCM. I have certainly come to

see that more and more. There just isn't necessarily any " truth " to these

things. I can observe that an herb reliably addresses certain symptom

sign complexes and can thus assign it a TCM function for solely that

reason. To go further and say that the reason the herb does what it does

is because it is spicy and enters the liver channel is useful only to the

extent that this alters my clinical applications of the herb. The

function of the herb tells me what organs are affected and whether the

herb astringes or tonifies or disperses or cools or warms or upbears or

downbears. It may be helpful for me to remember which herbs are spicy so

I may more easily select dispersing herbs when need be.

 

 

Chinese Herbs

 

 

" Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre

minds " -- Albert Einstein

[Guest guest]

dear different subject here with regards to the herb dang gui,

(radix angelica sinesis)-i just got off the phone with an internist

(western m.d.) i usually work with- i get some good referalls from

her-she is claiming that dang gui/tang kuei is carcinongenic. she

insisted that i and all other practitioners should refrain

because " you don't want to go around killing your patients. " i had

never heard of this claim before-i went to OCOM, i think i am well

versed in chinese herbology, spent some time at Nanjing Medical

University studying, so what is this claim? i also sent a message to

Subhuti at ITM to see what he thought. this kind of misinformation

always makes me nervous. i am calling her back tomorrow and see what

study she read this from, etc. thanks for the advice in advance.

gonzo flores, groundspring healing center. you can respond to me in a

private email if you would rather do this-you can reach me at

groundspring or you can reach me my clinic-503-244-1330

xie xie ni,

zai jian

, <@i...>

wrote:

> , Cara Frank

<herbbabe@e...>

> wrote:

> As you know, I am nearly obsessed w/ the

> > functions of the flavors: there I said it; the flavor is the

function

>

> To play devil's advocate, what if the flavors and other attributes

of

> herbs are somewhat arbitrary, varying as they do between texts and

in

> different eras. It is even acknowledged in modern materia medicas

that

> many herbs were assigned FLAVORS based on their already known

FUNCTIONS

> (xu and wang, pg. 2; also see Cinnabar Creek Notes from 5/02 by

Andy Ellis,

> chai hu monograph). Many thus do not actually have the taste

assigned

> to them (according to wang and xu, among others). We also need to

> consider that one of the reasons the chinese do have so many spicy

herbs

> that disperse and sweet herbs that tonify is because that is what

they

> were looking for. Just like today's scientists, they used theory

to

> narrow their search parameters. But just because these rules seem

to

> apply so well to our materia medica does not mean they are

universally

> valid.

>

> I am not sure we can extend this method of organizing herbs to the

materia

> medica of other cultures. that does not diminish the importance of

this

> method of organization for the practice of TCM. I have certainly

come to

> see that more and more. There just isn't necessarily any " truth "

to these

> things. I can observe that an herb reliably addresses certain

symptom

> sign complexes and can thus assign it a TCM function for solely

that

> reason. To go further and say that the reason the herb does what

it does

> is because it is spicy and enters the liver channel is useful only

to the

> extent that this alters my clinical applications of the herb. The

> function of the herb tells me what organs are affected and whether

the

> herb astringes or tonifies or disperses or cools or warms or

upbears or

> downbears. It may be helpful for me to remember which herbs are

spicy so

> I may more easily select dispersing herbs when need be.

>

>

> Chinese Herbs

>

> voice:

> fax:

>

> " Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre

> minds " -- Albert Einstein

[Guest guest]

the question is rather why we have not found it effective in TCM training at this level

>>>Because the expectations are different

Alon