Guest guest Posted March 19, 2005 Report Share Posted March 19, 2005 This is so funny. I haven't been looking through the boards for a long time, and only came back just now after getting a new job - with Sun Ten in Australia as NSW sales rep - to see such a discussion happening so recently! Don't worry, I only just joined five days ago, so I have not been brainwashed by company propaganda yet ..... I am curious to ask people though, what they feel chinese herbal medicine will look like in fifty years time. In Australia, I keep hearing these rumours about the government wanting to get serious about regulating and standardising the use of raw herbs, which is certain to have a VERY profound impact on the industry here. This, incidentally, for better or for worse, is very good news for the pharmaceutical grade granules industry. Are granules of some form the way of the future? Can someone tell me, say in Taiwan or Japan, what percentage of perscription is raw herbs and what proportion some sort of extract currently? What are your opinions generally of granules vs. raw herbs, relative pros and cons of each? My two cents is that in all probability, raw herbs have the highest potential in the right hands. This is simply because we have more collective experiences and empirical data (thousands of years worth) to work with, and therefore much more subtlety is available to us. But this is only for the moment. Just as new herbs from foreign lands have been successfully integrated into the Chinese medical pharmacopeia in the past, more precise information on the subtle differences between granules and raw herbs in qi dynamic terms will eventually be gleaned with greater usage. Let us not ignore also the modern scientific data that we now have to hopefully speed up, though hopefully not short-cut and betray, this process. For the moment though, it does seems to me that granules are a good option when such subtlety is not necessary, or has yet to be achieved by the practitioner. At least this is my justification to myself - you see I am someone who myself sees a 68 year old, old school Mainland practitioner (from a somewhat esoteric lineage, not just a university) who dispenses raw herbs with incredible proficiency that I doubt could be achieved with any granules, and yet find myself in this job promoting Sun Ten products. I can see that though granules are inferior to raw herbs at the moment in an ultimate sense, that does not mean that I reject them wholesale for they clearly are of great benefit. That's my attempt at an integral map of chinese herbology that somehow manages to honour the good in all approaches anyway. Comments? -Li , " Marian Blum " <marianb@r...> wrote: > > > > >re: Mintong > >. . . All final product goes through strict quality > control - > >checking microbial counts, testing for heavy metals and > pesticide residues. > > > When I called Mintong and asked (I didn't ask her name.) > about obtaining Certificates of Analysis for their products, > I was told, and I quote from my notes: " We only have one > sheet. We don't test all herbs. This sheet lists all herbs > we test. " I didn't consider using their herbs after that > conversation late last year. I will revisit them, though, > after reading the positive comments on this list--perhaps I > just reached someone ill-informed. > > Marian > -- > Internal Virus Database is out-of-date. > > Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 266.5.1 - Release Date: > 02/27/2005 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 19, 2005 Report Share Posted March 19, 2005 Welcome, Dr. Li. We look forward to your comments in the future. I think the other factor is the culture of the patient and I don't just mean those from Australia or the West. I can imagine that many Chinese find the powders more convenient in their increasingly busy lives. And perhaps more " Western " and " Scientific " in their standardization. Your comments might also come from an old school Indian Yoga paractitioner looking at the Yoga classes being offered everywhere in the West (and now India). Yes, something is lost but something is gained also in the numbers of people reached with increasing convenience and acceptance. But it is perhaps best not to see powders as inferior but as another art/medicine form with its own set of subtleties and potentials. doug , " Lopan " <lionel.y.chan@u...> wrote: > > This is so funny. I haven't been looking through the boards for a > long time, and only came back just now after getting a new job - with > Sun Ten in Australia as NSW sales rep - to see such a discussion > happening so recently! > > > For the moment though, it does seems to me that granules are a good > option when such subtlety is not necessary, or has yet to be achieved > by the practitioner. At least this is my justification to myself - > you see I am someone who myself sees a 68 year old, old school > Mainland practitioner (from a somewhat esoteric lineage, not just a > university) who dispenses raw herbs with incredible proficiency that I > doubt could be achieved with any granules, and yet find myself in this > job promoting Sun Ten products. I can see that though granules are > inferior to raw herbs at the moment in an ultimate sense, that does > not mean that I reject them wholesale for they clearly are of great > benefit. That's my attempt at an integral map of chinese herbology > that somehow manages to honour the good in all approaches anyway. > > Comments? > > -Li > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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