Combining Western Herbs and Chinese Medicine: Principles, Practice, and Materia Medica (Hardcover)

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This looks interesting.

 

 

 

 

http://www.amazon.com/Combining-Western-Herbs-Chinese-Medicine/dp/0972819304/ref\

=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8 & s=books & qid=1257134810 & sr=1-4

Combining Western Herbs and : Principles, Practice, and

Materia Medica (Hardcover)

~ Jeremy Ross

 

http://sehatweb.blogspot.com/2009/11/combining-western-herbs-and-chinese.html

 

Sunday, 1 November 2009

COMBINING WESTERN HERBS AND CHINESE MEDICINE

FOR 200 years, Western herbalism has abandoned ancient herbal prescribing

systems. As a result, a treasury of Western herbs is now prescribed

symptomatically without reference to root patterns of disharmony.

Thorough examination of ancient western herbal medicine reveals that, like

Chinese medicine, it was similarly systematised in energetic terms, and even

though the minutiae of description differ, the occidental and oriental

systems are extraordinarily similar.

In his book Combining Western Herbs and - Principles,

Practice and Materia Medica, researcher, experienced TCM and Western trained

herbalist Jeremy Ross recasts the traditional Chinese medicine framework to

include valued western herbs, and reveals a logical system to prescribe

western herbs and formulas.

The contentious issue of assigning TCM properties to herbs that normally

take generations to know in this way springs to mind. However, nowadays

access to precise pharmacodynamic data provides new information with which

we can recognise more completely the actions of herbs.

Interpretation of this data can substantiate and accelerate the

understanding of a therapy, fastening the synthesis of knowledge.

Jeremy Ross has taken seven years to create a massive and impressive work

linking Western herbalism, traditional Chinese medicine and pharmacological

data in a way that will establish a useful repertory for both camps of

medicine.

The best available information distilled from many classic Western works,

pharmacological research and expert clinical observations is tabulated

alongside TCM values to reveal startling portraits of Western herbs.

The book is in two parts - part one surveys western herbal tradition roots,

schools of thought, Chinese literature searches, pharmacological and

clinical research. The Western herbal parameters of taste and temperature

are articulated to link with the Chinese classif cations.

The actions of herbs in general are lucidly discussed, and channel tropism

and principles of herb combination in theory and practice are very detailed.

Each herb's indications is matched to a TCM syndrome, as is typical of

Chinese herbal compendiums, and the introduction of several newly reasoned

TCM-like pattern def nitions will help to ref ne herbal prescribing.

Ross also introduces an intriguing concept of variable temperature

properties possible within single herbs.

Yarrow (Alchillea millefolium), for instance, has amphoteric properties,

cold and warm, that can be modulated accordingly. His argument is

interesting and draws credible weight from pharmacological assays indicating

that the array of chemical constituents found within a plant can be deduced

to be of differing temperatures. If so, the preparation method will

therefore inf uence their expression.

The subject of dose is thorough and elucidates many important facets of

therapeutic dose, presentation and administration.

The three chapters on safety are excellent and examine several aspects of

many emergent issues, and the contemporary arguments for and against herbal

medicine are given solutions.

The chapter titled Safety of the Organ Systems analyses relevant

pharmacological studies and the implications for the organs of the body.

Another chapter on clinical safety provides important and crucial

information for the clinician mindful of drug-herb interaction, adverse

reactions and the management of side effects

Part two, the material medica, presents in detail 50 of the most valuable

herbs. Three hundred and eighty herbal couplets, building blocks of the 180

herbal formulas, are then described in concise detail.

Special keynotes highlight the subject herb in Chinese, Western traditional

and harmacodynamic attributes.

Including vigorous analysis with modern pharmacological data and

substantiated with over 1500 references, the result is a formidable

resource.

This book is excellently indexed, cross-references are eff cient and herb

nomenclature tables are thorough and easy to read.

The TCM specialist will be impressed by the author's method, lucidity and

attention to detail on herbal documentation.

This will provide valuable information for clinical practice, as it presents

a f rm base from which to access the popular herbs of the Western

hemisphere.