formulas as templates (aka heresy)

[Guest guest]

Craig Mitchell at CHA began his lecture by sharing something he had

learned form Andy Ellis. I learned the same thing from Wei Li. Qin

Bo Wei writes the same as well. Heiner Fruehauf has said the same.A

formula should be viewed as a template for how to combine herbs. In

most cases the herbs themselves are not essential to the equation. Any

medicinal with the same action can be used. It is all about addressing

the pathomechanisms. He gives the example of si wu tang and suggests

that one could combine other herbs that address the same functions of

both supplementing and invigorating blood. There was no need at all to

use Si wu tang. One could use Ji xue teng, dan shen and he shou wu

instead. Craig implicitly contrasts this with the SHL commentators

whose cases he shares. These docs never delete a single ingredient.

But the common thread is the pathomechanisms. Whether one adheres to

old rx or new ones, one cannot be said to be more traditional, per se.

This is an age old argument, no doubt.

 

I would suggest that an extension of the use of formulas templates is

the adaptation of this idea to western supplements. has

a good book due out soon on western herbs. Some work has already been

done on supplements by Bob Flaws in the Tao of Healthy eating and out

of print in Something old, something new and cervical dysplasia.

Subhuti has touched on this subject somewhat. I know the chinese often

use vitamins in patients. Has much or anything been written about

their properties in Chinese? Not that modern chinese descriptions of

such items would be any more reliable than our own attempts. Vitamins

and other supplements are familiar to Americans. They are often quite

potent compared to herbs gram per gram. Thus they can be delivered in

convenient forms at the full strength of a decoction. I think it would

be interesting to have aline of classical formulas where chinese herbs

are completely replaced by other supplements that address the same

pathomechanisms. You know, like a nutraceutical xiao yao san. The

movement of TCM into foreign cultures does not solely include the

adoption of local natural substances, but arguably local medicinals of

all kinds.

 

 

Chinese Herbs

 

 

FAX:

 

 

[Guest guest]

 

 

From everything I have read in the Chinese language literature,

Chinese practitioners regard vitamins and other nutritional

supplements as " Western medicine " and, therefore, have not gone the

further step of trying to describe them as Chinese medicinals. In

their attempt to integrate Chinese and Western medicine, they seem

content to practice Western medicine according to its own criteria but

practice Chinese medicine according to both Chinese medical and

Western medical criteria. I think this is due to the assumption that

Western medicine is more " scientific, " " real, " " modern, " and, thus

more valuable, more true. It is an interesting sociological phenomenon.

 

Bob