Examples

[Guest guest]

Paul's point about this comparison is

that if you scan the history of the

use of herbs (and others medicinal

ingredients) as medicine in China you

find a great preponderance of reliance

on prepared drugs and relatively little

historical justification for the

contemporary emphasis when viewing

the practice of herbal medicine on

individualized formulas.

>>>>I think the chinese has the first brand name type industry for medicines

Alon

 

 

[Guest guest]

I have a number of thoughts on these issues.

 

1) Is SHL 'disease-based' diagnosis? It clearly has a pattern-oriented

approach to treatment, and modifies prescriptions according to symptom

pattern. So while it is not a zang-fu bian zheng, I think it is a

stretch to say it is merely a disease diagnosis form of treatment.

 

2) So called 'patents'. Are you referring to the little boxes of pills

imported from China, or any form of prepared medicine? Xu Dachun,

supposedly one of the 'elite' practitioners, recommends that physicians

prepare pills and powders for their patients, and only to use

decoctions for short-term use. The author of the Zhang Zhong Jing

(reputedly Hua To) recommends close to the same. So I think it is a

stretch to say that 'patents' don't work. It depends what you mean by

'patents'.

 

3) I don't think naturopaths should use Chinese herbs automatically

without training, because they need to learn the medicinals,

prescriptions, AND the pattern diagnosis. Even those physicians in

China who used prepared formulas and a disease diagnosis broke down the

diseases into patterns. It wasn't the same as modern disease

diagnosis. Plus, they used prescriptions of multiple ingredients,

instead of individual drug prescriptions as in modern biomedicine.

 

To be continued,

 

On Friday, September 26, 2003, at 09:59 AM, wrote:

 

> according to the elite tradition, the supposed " effectiveness " of

> patent

> meds is an illusion. They relieve symptoms but except in self limited

> illnesses do not " cure " . If one no longer is constipated as long as

> one

> takes ma zi ren wan, one may feel great and this may be the best one

> can do.

> If one takes tailored formulas for a while and attends to diet and

> exercise, one may be relieved of the need for laxatives altogether. I

> have

> never seen anything but habituation with the use of patent meds. I

> have

> never seen a herpes patients get any lasting relief from long dan xie

> gan

> tang, but considerable remission from tailored rx. On the other hand,

> saw

> palmetto " cures " most BPH patients regardless of pattern.