aromatic

[Guest guest]

Concerning raw herbs and other preparations: The times I really insist

on raw herbs is for initial Wind diseases where I feel the aroma of the

herbs is very important. And conversely in serious diseases like

cancers and auto-immune where the " thickness " of the herbs where in my

mind is important to get to the kidneys. All others I am flexible. My

chronic hep patients get capsules because they are going to be on them

for years.

I generally find two types of patients. One who looks at a bag of

herbs, grimaces and says, yeuuuhhhh. The other says (as one patient put

it), " cool, this is the real medicine. "

 

 

So many questions, to which I would add (because I really don't know),

what is the Medicine like in Vietnam when practiced by ethnic Chinese

and the other smaller East Asian countries? In terms of the

transmission of to America we must look at the rather

recent migration of practitioners out of China. I sometimes forget

that many earlier Western practitioners were perhaps taught by non-TCM

doctors. Misha Cohen? Others on the list? Dr. Shen's influence? I would

love to see a history of The Young Lords/Brown Berets, Montreal, Walter

Basque etc in New York. (Nobody has to answer these, please.)

 

Perhaps in the future a Chinese anthropologist will write about how

Chinese TCM doctors in the West are changed by their experience here.

So many of my colleagues have commented that they have had to " really

practice " here, away from the Western tools. They see

the irony, too. When that generation goes back (to retire?), will they

bring all the esoteric and psychological issues that are so important

here as well as a " purer " practice?

 

Personally, rather than spending time taking apart Fundamentals or

whatever I would rather see an exploration of the challenges in the

last chapters of Volker Scheid's book.

 

doug

 

 

 

On Thursday, October 16, 2003, at 08:03 AM,

wrote:

 

> If PU

> thinks that the medicine that we are representing as CM is " not that "

> than

> what exactly is his referent when he refers to CM?

>

> Is it Pre-Communist Revolution CM - well, CM was outlawed for a time

> and

> then came back in a form that is not all that distant from " TCM "

>

> Is it pre-Republican CM?

>

> Is it Ming/Qing CM? - the CM of Li Dong Yuan & Zhu Dan Xi?

>

> Is it Tang Dynasty CM - after all this is when education in CM began

> to be

> formalized.

>

> Is it Han Dynasty CM? Is it the CM of the Nei Jing? The Nan Jing?

> The SHL?

>