SHL study group

[Guest guest]

Dear Members

 

I have been wanting to use CHA for more structured threads for some time.

CHA was founded to talk about Chinese Herbology. Turns out there were

quite a few political and academic issues to wrestle with, which will go

on for some time. My personal nature is mainly journalistic and editorial.

I believe journalism was the first profession that interested me (or was

it paleontologist?). Thus CHA has been loaded with news and politics and

science and philosophy and " theory " , all of which I love. It has been

largely unstructured in that posters typically do not have a planned

series of messages. This makes that aspect of the list more like

conversation. Though the " conversation " can become eloquent or passionate

or verbose or sophisticated at time, the goal of posting is typically not

thought of in terms of outcomes.

 

However, the nice thing about cyberspace is that multiple conversations

can go on simultaneously without interfering with one another. Some can

be conversational. Others can be structured, such as CHA's online classes.

I was hoping some of you out there might be interested in trying an

experiment. We could go through Mitchell's translation of the Shang Han

Lun clause by clause. If any of you have not yet seen this translation,

it organized by diseases such as taiyang disease. Much as the jia yi jing

organized the nei jing by topic, this text pulls together all the clauses

on taiyang disease and so on. It also includes extensive commentary. The

chinese text, pinyin and wiseman translation are all present, so it forms

an ideal language learning tool for those who have studied grammar and

character construction already. My idea is to post a clause and discuss

it from whatever perspective commentators think relevant, whether it be

the etymology and meaning of particular characters or the practical

application of this material in their clinic.

 

Before beginning I note that in the intro to the book, it is pointed out

that nowhere in the original text is the word stage used to describe the

six diseases. While there are certainly clauses that talk of one disease

transforming into another, the detailed idea of the progression through

the six stages is based largely upon commentary. Thus there are differing

opinion as to the order of the stages, if there is one and to the

applicability of this model to the progression of illness, whether it be

chronic or acute. I hope we will hear from all sides of the issue.

 

The first clause says,

 

In disease of the greater yang, the pulse is floating, the head and nape

are stiff and painful, and there is aversion to cold

 

What occurs to me here are:

 

1. the primacy of the floating pulse; in contrast, clause 2 on wind

strike and clause 3 on cold damage list the pulses last. In addition,

floating is listed as a general and also " most important? " feature of

taiyang in clause 1. floating is not restated in clause 2 or 3, so my

assumption is that floating is implied in those clauses, given the primacy

of this aspect in clause 1.

 

2. the absence of heat effusion as a defining feature of taiyang. in

fact heat effusion is a defining feature of wind strike as noted in clause

2, but not in cold damage as noted in clause 3. so the classic of

feverish diseases does not require fever to be present to make the dx. On

the other hand, as we will see, high palpable fever can still be part of

taiyang as well.

 

3. the commentary is that aversion to cold does not require an external

source of cold, but rather refers to a feeling of cold that cannot be

diminished by covering up. the translators admit however that this point

is not always clear in the SHL literature.

 

 

 

Chinese Herbs

 

 

" Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre

minds " -- Albert Einstein

[Guest guest]

As promised, here are the postponed shang han lun threads.

 

, <@i...> wrote:

Dear Members

 

I have been wanting to use CHA for more structured threads for some time.

CHA was founded to talk about Chinese Herbology. Turns out there were

quite a few political and academic issues to wrestle with, which will go

on for some time. My personal nature is mainly journalistic and editorial.

I believe journalism was the first profession that interested me (or was

it paleontologist?). Thus CHA has been loaded with news and politics and

science and philosophy and " theory " , all of which I love. It has been

largely unstructured in that posters typically do not have a planned

series of messages. This makes that aspect of the list more like

conversation. Though the " conversation " can become eloquent or passionate

or verbose or sophisticated at time, the goal of posting is typically not

thought of in terms of outcomes.

 

However, the nice thing about cyberspace is that multiple conversations

can go on simultaneously without interfering with one another. Some can

be conversational. Others can be structured, such as CHA's online classes.

I was hoping some of you out there might be interested in trying an

experiment. We could go through Mitchell's translation of the Shang Han

Lun clause by clause. If any of you have not yet seen this translation,

it organized by diseases such as taiyang disease. Much as the jia yi jing

organized the nei jing by topic, this text pulls together all the clauses

on taiyang disease and so on. It also includes extensive commentary. The

chinese text, pinyin and wiseman translation are all present, so it forms

an ideal language learning tool for those who have studied grammar and

character construction already. My idea is to post a clause and discuss

it from whatever perspective commentators think relevant, whether it be

the etymology and meaning of particular characters or the practical

application of this material in their clinic.

 

Before beginning I note that in the intro to the book, it is pointed out

that nowhere in the original text is the word stage used to describe the

six diseases. While there are certainly clauses that talk of one disease

transforming into another, the detailed idea of the progression through

the six stages is based largely upon commentary. Thus there are differing

opinion as to the order of the stages, if there is one and to the

applicability of this model to the progression of illness, whether it be

chronic or acute. I hope we will hear from all sides of the issue.

 

The first clause says,

 

In disease of the greater yang, the pulse is floating, the head and nape

are stiff and painful, and there is aversion to cold

 

What occurs to me here are:

 

1. the primacy of the floating pulse; in contrast, clause 2 on wind

strike and clause 3 on cold damage list the pulses last. In addition,

floating is listed as a general and also " most important? " feature of

taiyang in clause 1. floating is not restated in clause 2 or 3, so my

assumption is that floating is implied in those clauses, given the primacy

of this aspect in clause 1.

 

2. the absence of heat effusion as a defining feature of taiyang. in

fact heat effusion is a defining feature of wind strike as noted in clause

2, but not in cold damage as noted in clause 3. so the classic of

feverish diseases does not require fever to be present to make the dx. On

the other hand, as we will see, high palpable fever can still be part of

taiyang as well.

 

3. the commentary is that aversion to cold does not require an external

source of cold, but rather refers to a feeling of cold that cannot be

diminished by covering up. the translators admit however that this point

is not always clear in the SHL literature.

 

 

 

Chinese Herbs

 

 

" Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre

minds " -- Albert Einstein

--- End forwarded message ---