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Current herbal practice in China

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Dear Listmembers

 

I have gotten in a small argument here in Switzerland with a college who is saying that in China, the "predominant method of herbal administration at the hospitals is the individually wrapped day doses type of herbs." I cannot really believe this, as, when I was there a few years ago, it was all on a raw herb basis. I will go to China this summer and see for myself. However, in the meantime, I would like to ask all persons on this list who a) have recently been in China b) know for a FACT how it is CURRENTLY done or c) live and practice there who this matter really stands.

 

What type of herbal administration is carried out in what type of hospitals? Is it true that the daily dose packages are quickly advancing to become the standard? How are tablets and pills (modern manufacturing) faring IN COMPARISON to raw herbs?

 

I appreciate yur help. If this does not belong on this list, e-mail me privately.

 

Simon Becker

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Simon,

 

The operant word in your argument is

" predominant " . If I understand the type

of doses you are referring to, i.e., the

ones made in Korean-made pressure cookers

that are then packaged in plastic hermetically

sealed bags (which are generally divided

into two bags per daily dose), then I

can tell you that these kinds of administrations

are increasingly popular in larger, more

well-equipped Chinese hospitals offering

traditional Chinese herbal medicines.

 

Are they predominant? I've not way of knowing.

 

I presume that by far the predominant dosage

form remains bulk raw herb formulas that

are prepared in the traditional ways at

home by the patients or their families.

 

But again, I've just got no idea of how

to even begin to go about determining

the extent of each type. Remember that

90% of the Chinese population remains

in the countryside, and I can more or

less guarantee that these folks have

no access to anything but the traditional

methods.

 

Why don't you guys just slug it out?

 

That's often the best way to settle such

arguments.

 

Why in the world are you arguing about

this anyway?

 

Ken

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, " dragon90405 " <

yulong@m...> wrote:

 

If I understand the type

> of doses you are referring to, i.e., the

> ones made in Korean-made pressure cookers

> that are then packaged in plastic hermetically

> sealed bags (which are generally divided

> into two bags per daily dose), then I

> can tell you that these kinds of administrations

> are increasingly popular in larger, more

> well-equipped Chinese hospitals offering

> traditional Chinese herbal medicines.

\

 

It makes sense that things would go this way as china modernizes. Is this a

problem. These products are probably better than home decoctions in their

potency and efficiency of extraction anyway. I am sure Ken is right about the

rural population. from all that I read, they do not appear to have many modern

conveniences, however, I thought they were now only 70% of the population.

 

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Beginning March of 2002 I spent six months

in China. I visited a private practitioner in Qingdao and his prescriptions

came in individually sealed plastic bags a little larger than a standard teabag

(and he diagnosed almost exclusively using some form of auricular probe

attached to a PC). I spent a week at a pharmacy in Inner Mongolia where, as Ken suggested,

bulk herbs were the norm. The surprising thing to me though was the

preponderance of administering medicinals intravenously. My poor language

skills prevented me from fully understanding exactly what was going into those

IVs (the Baotou dialect is a challenge, especially when the Doctor is around 70

years old). I’m not sure if there was any Chinese medicine at all

involved in those treatments. I asked a friend who worked there and he didn’t

know specifically, but he said it was Western medicine. When I saw these

IVs used for patients with a common cold I told him that we don’t have a cure

for that in the West, he had no answer. One thing that I found quite

amazing is the rate at which they passed out Western style pharmaceuticals,

e.g. – antibiotics. Once again my friend who worked behind the counter

for years (his mother was the owner) knew nothing at all about the need to

complete an entire course of antibiotics. The instructions were to take

them until you felt well. No one at that facility had a formal medical

education. My friend’s mom who dispensed most of the non-bulk herb items

had the equivalent of a third grade education. The CM practitioner was

well respected, though I watched him diagnose a patient who clearly had lung

cancer and he failed to mention anything about smoking. As a matter of

fact, an employee in the clinic began smoking right next to the cancer patient

during the diagnosis. When I quietly objected the patient laughed and

said that it was fine – he smoked too.

 

I am staggered by the idea of a nation of

several billion people potentially misusing antibiotics and other meds this way.

I was just thankful that the elderly patients didn’t take the quantity and

variety of drugs commonplace in West. That fact alone greatly reduces the

likely iatrogenic f/x of ignorance. I’d like to expand on Simon’s

question and ask if anyone knows if my experiences similar to mine are

commonplace in rural China. Baotou is by no means a small city by our standards and I am very alarmed

at what I witnessed.

 

-Tim Sharpe

 

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It is not a big argument; it is just that he represents these type of granules here in Switzerland and makes the government believe that this is the method used all over China. I have said many times that this does not seem correct to me. Before I now say that this is definitely not right, I wanted to check with you. So thanks to you and all others who have contributed a comment or two.

>>>Simon even in the 85 our hospital had granules, not single herbs however. they had lots of sugar like tian qi jing. The majority of formulas were raw herbs. But patients needed long term care often used pills and granules

alon

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