Chinese Herbalism

History of Chinese Herbalism:

For nearly 3000 years oriental cultures have harnessed the natural power of the earth to live healthier, happier, more yougthful lives. Chinese herbs have been used for centuries. The first herbalist in Chinese tradition is Shennong, a mythical personage, who is said to have tasted hundreds of herbs and imparted his knowledge of medicinal and poisonous plants to the agricultural people. The first Chinese manual on pharmacology, the Shennong Bencao Jing (Shennong Emperor’s Classic of Materia Medica), lists some 365 medicines of which 252 of them are herbs, and dates back somewhere in the 1st century C.E. Han dynasty. Earlier literature included lists of prescriptions for specific ailments, exemplified by a manuscript “Recipes for 52 Ailments”, found in the MaWangDui tomb, sealed in 168 B.C.E. Succeeding generations augmented on this work, as in the Yaoxing Lun, a 7th century Tang Dynasty Chinese treatise on herbal medicine. Arguably the most important of these was the Compendium of Materia Medica (Bencao Gangmu) compiled during the Ming dynasty by Li Shizhen, which is still used today for consultation and reference.

For thousands of years, natural Chinese herbal remedies and herbs have been used to improve health, vitality, and overall life expectancy. The effectiveness of these herbs is continually proven as they are used to restore body functions to normal and to treat numerous illnesses.

Used to restore normal body functions and to treat sickness, Chinese medicines and herbs have been used for thousands of years and are recognized for their abilities to improve health, vitality, and life expectancy. These herbs often have few or no side effects in contrast to commercial drugs.

Differing dramatically from scientific medicine, Chinese medicine focuses on treating the entire body to promote health. The emotional and spiritual health of a patient, in addition to total wellness, are considered when treating and diagnosing conditions and problems. When illness or disease is present, the condition is considered a symptom of the person being out of balance.

Holistic and homeopathic treatments are used in Traditional Chinese Medicine including massage, stress-reduction, acupuncture, exercise, cupping, lifestyle change, moxibustion, and herbal medicine.

What Is Herbalism?

Healers in many different health traditions use herbs. This Fact Sheet discusses herbs as a part of traditional Chinese medicine.

Traditional Chinese medicine is at least 2,500 years old. It views the human body as a system of energy flows. When these flows are balanced, the body is healthy. Practitioners take their patients’ pulses and examine their tongues to diagnose energy imbalances. In Chinese medicine, pulses can be taken at three positions on each wrist, and at three depths at each position.

Illness is not defined by symptoms or the name of a disease like “HIV infection.” Instead, a practitioner of Chinese medicine will talk about energy imbalances. The language can sound very strange, like “yin deficiency” or “liver heat rising.” The Chinese words yin and yang refer to opposing energies that should be in balance, and Qi (pronounced “chee”) can be roughly translated as energy or life force.

In traditional Chinese medicine, there are many ways to improve the balance of the body’s energy flows. The most common techniques used in the western world are exercise techniques such as Qigong or Tai Chi, acupuncture, and herbalism. Fact Sheet 703 has more information on Chinese acupuncture.

Many practitioners of Chinese medicine specialize in either acupuncture or herbalism. Very few use both methods.

Chinese Herbalism is the subject which researched knowledge include basic theory of Chinese materia medica and include crude medicine and prepared drug in pieces and traditional Chinese patent medicines and simple preparations’ source, collection and preparation, performance, efficacy, and clinical application. Chinese materia medica is also the medicine based on traditional Chinese medicine theory. it includes Chinese crude medicine, prepared drug in pieces of Chinese materia medica and traditional Chinese patent medicines and simple preparations, etc. Herbalism is the Chinese art of combining medicinal herbs. Herbalism is traditionally one of the more important modalities utilized in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Each herbal medicine prescription is a cocktail of many herbs tailored to the individual patient. One batch of herbs is typically decocted twice over the course of one hour. The practitioner usually designs a remedy using one or two main ingredients that target the illness. Then the practitioner adds many other ingredients to adjust the formula to the patient’s yin/yang conditions. Sometimes, ingredients are needed to cancel out toxicity or side-effects of the main ingredients. Some herbs require the use of other ingredients as catalyst or else the brew is ineffective. The latter steps require great experience and knowledge, and make the difference between a good Chinese herbal doctor and an amateur. Unlike western medications, the balance and interaction of all the ingredients are considered more important than the effect of individual ingredients. A key to success in TCM is the treatment of each patient as an individual.

Chinese Herbalism often incorporates ingredients from all parts of plants, the leaf, stem, flower, root, and also ingredients from animals and minerals. The use of parts of endangered species (such as seahorses, rhinoceros horns, and tiger bones) has created controversy and resulted in a black market of poachers who hunt restricted animals. Many herbal manufacturers have discontinued the use of any parts from endangered animals.

THE USE OF CHINESE HERBS AND FORMULAS

Chinese herbalism is primarily based upon the use of compound herbal formulas utilizing a combination of mostly herbs with minerals insect and animals. Students and most practitioners have come to rely on the classical corpus of medicinal formulations that have been evolved and passed down over the last 5000 years. It is the study and reliance on such tried and proven formulas that is at the heart of classical Chinese herbalism.

Why are formulas used over single herbs? Compound formulas are designed and intended to treat complex underlying imbalances, the sum of which eventually manifest as disease. While a simple imbalance may require only one or a small few herbs, a complex imbalance involving more physiological dysfunction”s requires the use of several herbs together in formula. Another reason is that through their combination, the complex biochemistry of herbs form unique chemical compounds not naturally occurring in nature. In this sense, an herbal formula becomes synergistic more than the mere sum of its parts.

Considering that each herb is, in itself, a factory of scores of biochemical components, that the interactions of these components vary according to the chemistry of the individual (expressed in TCM by the various diagnostic parameters), it is quite difficult, given the limits of contemporary scientific technology, to even track the effects of say one or two herbs in a living body (“in vivo”). Therefore, unless one is content with evaluating mere statistical data as to a classical formula”s effectiveness (as is documented in contemporary Chinese research), there is little hope in the foreseeable future for Western science being either willing or capable of tracking the labyrinthine physiological interactions of complex classical formulas that may range, on the average, from 3 to 20 or more herbs in a single formula.

At least in the early stages of study and practice, TCM students and practitioners are taught the individual herbs of the materia medica and the various indications of time honored classical formulas. This constitutes a formidable body of knowledge which must be absorbed before one is able to confront the even further complex enigma of practice where students soon discover that despite years of training, patients seldom exactly fit the predefined molds of theory. An experienced practitioner must learn to add or subtract individual herbs according to each patient”s condition, and even that may not be enough as patients often respond better to the use of more than a single classical formula given alternately throughout each day. For instance, a woman with a complex menstrual irregularity may require the use of a Liver Qi regulating formula, such as Bupleurum and Peony Combination (Xiao yao san), taken twice daily after meals, with the more tonifying blood tonic formula, Dang Gui Four Combination (Si wu tang), taken before meals.

Just knowing what herbs to prescribe is only one of the many obstacles to overcome in practice. The second, and often more daunting, is to achieve patient compliance given the strange and unusual flavors of herbs. To facilitate this process, it becomes practical to not rely on patient”s ability to brew their own herbal formulas, which in many instances require several stages of preparation, but to use one of the various convenient preparations of concentrated dried extracts, liquid preparations, pills and premixed powders.

The admonition of my first Taoist Chinese herb teacher that “it takes more than one lifetime to become an herbalist”, reflects a profound appreciation for the commitment to unceasing study of hundreds of herbs and formulas along with the mastery of TCM diagnosis that is necessary for effective practice. Given this, it is useful to outline both traditional and non-traditional approaches to study and practice.

The three basic parameters of study include, in order of importance: 1. traditional diagnosis, 2. materia medica and 3. traditional formulations. Formerly, and in many parts of China today, students are trained to first memorize some 250 to 300 herbs in their categories along with their energies, flavors and actions. Beginning with a small group of “base” formulas from which the majority of others are comprised or derived, a student of TCM must then commit to memory between 100 to 200 classical formulas including their individual components, dosage, indications, contra-indications and most important, standard methods of variation according to individual patient requirement.

Even to this day, traditional training of a Chinese herbalist in China or Taiwan involves chanting or reciting the formulas and their indications# aloud in the classroom.

Upon graduation, many continue to chant the TCM formulas aloud in their respective clinical practices earning the appellation, “singing doctors”. Western students can modify this approach by developing a memorable phrase or rhyme based on the first letter of each herb in a formula.

Secondly, a student will soon learn after the study of dozens of classical formulas, there are patterns of herbal combinations which frequently recur in many formulas. Usually these consist of two to four herbs at a time, such as the following:

pinellia and ginger for phlegm conditions
cinnamon and prepared aconite for Cold conditions
oyster shell and dragon bone for sedative effects
coptis and scutellaria for toxic conditions

Considering the vast number of formulas, students are advised to begin by mastering a few primary or “base” formulas. Some of the most successful practitioners often revolve their practice around the utilization and variation of 20 or 30 formulas while others may have a repertoire of several hundred formulas to draw upon. On the average, a practitioner probably needs to know from 100 to 150 formulas which, in turn, can be modified to treat most presenting conditions.

How Are Chinese Herbs Used?

Based on your energy imbalances, your herbalist will prescribe a combination of herbs for you to use. The Chinese meaning of herbs can include various parts of plants as well as minerals and animal parts. The herbs can come in several forms:

“Loose” or “raw” herbs: you get a bag of various dried pieces of roots, bark, leaves, seeds, powders, and other items. These are usually boiled and you drink the “tea.” This is considered the most potent form for herbs, but it can be difficult to prepare them.

Powdered herbs: Dried herbs are ground into a powder. The powder might be mixed into water to drink, or taken in a capsule.

Tinctures: Dried herbs are prepared in a mixture of water and alcohol. You drink a dose of the tincture.

Patent medicines: Some of the most common combinations of herbs are available in prepared form as pills, capsules, creams, or other forms. There is usually very little or no labeling on these medicines except in Chinese.

Chinese herbs are prescribed to correct energy imbalances. You might feel better, or symptoms might disappear, but the best way to know if it’s time to stop or change the herbs you are taking is to consult with your herbalist.