fo ti tien

[Guest guest]

I'm pretty sure Fo-ti is the Cantonese naming/pronunciation...

doug

 

, <snakeoil.works@m...> wrote:

> Not sure of origin. Maybe originally a Cantonese word? Maybe could

cast some

historic light on the naming.

> A

>

>

> Thanks Ann

> I was wondering though where the fo ti came from ...

> must be a mistake

>

> Heiko Lade

> M.H.Sc.(TCM)

> Lecturer and clinic supervisor

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

Subhuti Dharmananda has pointed out some rather interesting info about

the naming of fo ti and fo ti tien. In a quote from his website:

 

" Ho-shou-wu came to the attention of Americans through a circuitous

route (the story was first revealed by the current author in an

article that appeared in Health Foods Business magazine, April 1981).

The herb was first known to many Westerners under the name " fo-ti, " a

designation which still appears, on occasion, today. No one in China

ever used that name for ho-shou-wu or any other herb. The way in which

this name came about is rather enlightening. A Hawaiian entrepreneur

had seen an article that was originally published in a newspaper,

which claimed that a recluse in China had lived to a very old,

surviving on local plants in the mountains. This Hawaiian abstracted

the marketable concept from the story and made an " elixir " of three

herbs that, he claimed, were the ones that conveyed longevity to this

long-lived individual, as well as several other recluses that had,

purportedly, attained a long life by the same means. These three herbs

were gotu kola from India, meadowsweet from Europe, and kola nut (an

African herb, which has also be cultivated throughout the tropics). He

gave it an exotic Chinese sounding name, Fo-Ti-Tieng. It was an

instant hit in the naive world of health foods and herbs that had

emerged during the 1970's in the U.S.

 

Jeanne Rose, author of the pop herb book of the 1970's, Herbs & Things

(written when she was bed-ridden for several months with not much else

to do after a car accident) listed fo-ti-tieng in the book. Under that

heading, she told the story of Li Chung Yun (his actual name was Li

Ch'ing Yuen; see Figure 2.), a Chinese herbalist who lived to the age

of 256 years (he is the one in the newspaper article), presumably

because he drank a daily tea made from, as she describes it, " an herb

called Fo-Ti-Tieng. " Thus, the sales pitch for a newly devised,

caffeine-containing herb mixture becomes a part of modern herbal lore:

the strange formulation invented just a couple of years earlier is

ignored, and a new herb is invented. In the story of Li Ch'ing Yuen

related by Da Liu (17), his longevity is attributed, primarily, to

consuming lycium fruits and, especially, to practicing certain

exercises of a type similar to Tai Ch'i Ch'uan.

 

Not to be outdone, those who were becoming involved with Chinese herbs

at around the same time also ignored the history and content of the

commercial product and, instead, made a search of the Chinese

literature, seeking Fo-Ti-Tieng. Their search was unsuccessful, but

that didn't stop those who wanted to sell something successfully by

gliding on the reputation fashioned for Fo-Ti-Tieng by an extensive

advertising campaign.

 

A Westerner importing Chinese herb products into the U.S. apparently

reasoned as follows: the product that is being sold as fo-ti-tieng is

reputed to prolong life; a Chinese herb that is reputed to prolong

life is ho-shou-wu. Therefore, fo-ti-tieng, the herb that purportedly

caused Li to live so long, is probably nothing other than ho-shou-wu.

It is reasonable to sell ho-shou-wu to people seeking Fo-Ti-Tieng,

but, since Fo-Ti-Tieng is someone else's trademarked name, I will just

call it Fo-ti.

 

Fo-ti, thus interpreted as a single herb rather than a proprietary

formula, became an integral part of many major herb capsule lines that

were found in herb and health food stores across the U.S. The herb

(riding on the popularity of the enigmatic Fo-Ti-Tieng) could

virtually sell itself without promotion and without mention in any but

the most recent of the popular herb books. In fact, purchasers of

Fo-ti assumed that they were getting Fo-Ti-Tieng, the item in the

advertisements. It may be worth mentioning that a trademark

infringement case was attempted by the originator of Fo-Ti-Tieng, to

no avail. Further, as a protection for the original formula, in case

someone should wish to copy it, its originator claimed that the

ingredient from India was Hydrocotyle asiatica minor, for which he had

the exclusive supply, while everyone else had access to the less

effective Hydrocotyle asiatica major. No botanist could be found to

support this distinction between varieties of gotu kola (Hydrocotyle

asiatica is the old botanical designation for gotu kola; it is now

known as Centella asiatica, there never was a minor and major

variety). Gotu kola is known in India as brahmi; a more commonly used

herb collected for brahmi is bacopa, which, extracted into black

sesame oil (yielding Brahmi Oil), is applied to the scalp to aid hair

growth.

 

To illustrate how far the situation with herb names can get out of

hand, yet another herb company sought out fo-ti (rather than

Fo-Ti-Tieng, now that the new name was available) from the Chinese

herb books. The closest spelling was fo-tse, which is one of the

unorthodox English spellings of fuzi (the pinyin name): aconite. This

herb was on the market for some time, sold as fo-ti, until the nature

of the raw material was finally realized. Luckily, the naive herb

company that marketed this item had purchased processed aconite rather

than raw aconite, so that it didn't threaten the health of the

consumer; raw fuzi is highly toxic. "