SV: Michael Tierra signed off the group

[Guest guest]

I just wanted to add this story in light of the previous discussion…….

 

 

 

BR

 

Carl Wallmark

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dr John H. F. Shen

 

 

by Ray Rubio, D.A.O.M.

(Westlake Village, CA, USA)

 

Somehow, early in my practice about 10 years ago, I was lucky enough to come

into contact with Dr. John Shen. At the time, I didn't know that this was

" the " Dr. Shen, as in the famous Chinese Pulse Master and Herblist who was

the inspiration for Dr. Leon Hammer's Pulse Book, and one of the major

influences for Giovanni Maciocia, Jane Lyttleton, Lonny Jarrett, and many,

many other leaders in our profession. I just found out that there was a

workshop being offered in Berkley on advanced herbal prescribing, so I

signed up and went. What an eye-opening, mind-opening, and heart-opening

experience for me!

 

Dr. Shen was from the Menghe-Ding lineage of pre-moaist, pre-tcm Chinese

physicians famous in Shanghai at the end of the 19th and beginning of the

20th Centuries. Like his predecessors of this lineage, Dr. Shen employed an

extremely detailed pulse diagnosis system, a facial diagnosis system, and an

herbal prescribing system that most closely resembled the Shang Han Lun

style of prescribing characterized by very low dosages of individual herbs -

often 1.5g to 3 or 6 g.

 

Dr. Shen was also renowned for the development of what he called " system

diagnosis " , wherein patients who have a multitude of signs and systems that

don't fit neatly into any Zang-Fu pattern, can then be diagnosed with what

Dr. Shen referred to as either " nervous system disease " , " digestive system

disease " or " circlatory system disease " . (see chapter 14 in Dr. Leon

Hammer's book, " Dragon Rises, Red Bird Flies " revised edition by Eastland

Press for a thorough discussion of this topic).

 

In the few years that I was able to spend time with Dr. Shen in both his New

York City practice, and in Shanghai before his death, I felt like I was

given a glimpse into the past history of - before it became

systematized and formulaic. What I learned from Dr. Shen, I mostly learned

from watching him. Watching him ask questions, feel the pulse, and then tell

the patient - not ask them - when, how, and why their disease or problem

developed. By using facial diagnosis to determine the chronology of the

disease, and using pulse/tongue and eyelid diagosis to assess the state of

the nervous system, digestive system, and blood, then using probing

questions to fill in the rest of the blanks - Dr. Shen was uncanny in his

ability to unravel even the most mysterious and stubborn conditions. The

following brief case will illustrate what I mean:

 

I was sitting with Dr. Shen while he saw patients during one of my trips to

see him in New York City. Because Dr. Shen was quite famous, it was not

uncommon for patients to fly from all over the world to come see him for

help. On this particular day, a very elegant woman in her early 40's came in

to see Dr. Shen complaining of violent, daily migraine headaches.

Interestingly, this woman was the heir to one of the worlds most famous

cosmetic/perfume families and had just flown in from Paris that day. She

proceeded to explain to Dr. Shen that her headaches had started suddenly

just about two years prior, and that she had been to see the best doctors in

Europe to no avail. There was no family history of migraines, she had not

had a head or neck injury preceding the onset of her headaches, and no

medications had even been able to dull the pain even a little. She had also

tried a virtual smorgasboard of alternative healers, again with no relief in

her pain. Finally someone suggested that she see Dr. Shen, and so here she

was.

 

Dr. Shen asked her some more questions about what she ate, when the pain was

the worst, how was her sleep and stress levels, where the pain was

localized, etc. The looked at her lower eyelid, and at her tongue very

briefly, and finally he motioned for her to extend her wrist onto the pulse

pillow so he could read her pulses. After spending about 5-10 minutes

listening to her pulses, Dr. Shen sat back and proceeded to ask her how she

was enjoying New York, where she was staying, was she going to see any shows

while she was in town, etc. At this point, both the patient and I were

slightly perplexed. I was perplexed because usually Dr. Shen would send the

patient to the waiting room to wait while he wrote their herbal

prescription, and he was just sitting there making small talk with her and

not writing anything. The patient was annoyed because she had flown all the

way from Paris to get help, not to chit-chat. Finally she started to weep,

telling Dr. Shen that she didn't know how much longer she could live with

these headaches, and that she had come to him to get herbal medicine to help

her with the pain.

 

Dr. Shen paused, took her hand very gently in his, looked into her eyes and

said that she didn't need herbs because she was already cured. I think my

jaw dropped to floor, and she too looked absolutely flabbergasted. I wasn't

used to Dr. Shen playing the faith-healer, so I wasn't sure what he meant.

Finally, he looked at her and asked her if she had perhaps started wearing

any new mascara about two years ago, around when the headaches started. She

thought for a moment while she wiped her eyes, and then she slowly nodded

her head and answered that her cosmetics company had launched a new mascara

at that time which was formulated to be a " 24-hour " mascara and be more long

lasting after being applied. She had taken to wearing it at that time. Dr.

Shen sat back and smiled and said that this was the cause of her headaches.

He proceeded to explain that because all of her neurological and physical

exams had turned up no cause to her headaches, and because there was no

family history of them, and because the onset was so sudden without any head

injury, Dr.Shen felt that the cause of the headaches had to be something

local (in the head) causing an allerghic reaction. He said that the lower

eyelid showed a chemical reaction in the bloodstream, and the pulse

indicated the same thing. He then said that he also noted that when he had

examined her lower eyelid, he noticed that the mascara did not come off on

his fingers like it normally did with female patients. Dr. Shen advised her

to stop wearing that mascara, and from that day on she was free of

headaches. After that, whenever she was visiting New York City, she would

make a point to stop in and drop off a present to Dr. Shen.

 

The patient above was only once of hundreds that I observed with Dr. Shen

where he used his superior powers of observation and logical thinking to

unravel very difficult cases. Dr. Shen always reminded me it is more

important to understand life, than to understand disease, because disease

usually comes from life. He said that being a doctor of was

very similar to being Sherlock Holmes - one had to be an astute observer of

even the smallest details. Sadly, Dr. Shen passed away at 90, still much too

soon for myself and his other students and patients who knew him and loved

him. From him I learned that all of the herbal knowledge and acupuncture

knowledge in the world mean very little without the correct diagnosis.

 

 

 

 

 

_____

 

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Skickat: den 23 februari 2008 21:50

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Ämne: Re: Michael Tierra signed off the group

 

 

 

I worried from the start when Michael jumped in so enthusiastically

and when he kept it going with half a dozen posts a day, it was clear

there was a collision of some sort coming up. I apologize, as

moderator, for figuring out a way to head it off. Michael and Bob

obviously represent the two ends of what in America

has become. Michael's The Way of Herbs was a great inspiration for me

to get into this whole thing. But Al is right, we are more academic

than free floating, after all we are the CH Academy.

 

I held back Michael's last post precisely because of the personalness

of it. It's too bad it started the way it did (I'm not going to edit

the body of a post) because the rest is rather beautiful and well stated.

 

Anyway....

Doug

 

@ <%40>

, " Al Stone " <al wrote:

>

> I know how difficult it can be to operate from a old-school

grass-roots kind

> of herbal paradigm when communicating with academics and authors.

>

> Still, this group has inspired me to raise the bar on a number of

fronts.

> While being right is great fun, being wrong is probably more

valuable in the

> long run.

>

> -al.

>

> On Sat, Feb 23, 2008 at 10:44 AM, bill_schoenbart <plantmed2

> wrote:

>

> > Michael has decided to sign off the group, so there is no need to

> > reply to his previous comments.

> >

> > - Bill

> >

>

> --

> , DAOM

> Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.

>

>

>