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Chinese herbology

Traditional Chinese herbal therapy

  • 17 min read
  • 11 chapters
Some elements for Médecine chinoise in Xi'an
Vberger · Public domain

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The term herbology is misleading in the sense that, while plant elements are by far the most commonly used substances, animal, human, and mineral products are also used, some of which are poisonous. In the Huangdi Neijing they are referred to as 毒藥 (pinyin: dúyào) which means "poison-medicine". Paul U. Unschuld points out that this is similar etymology to the Greek pharmakon and so he uses the term pharmaceutic. Thus, the term medicinal (instead of herb) is usually preferred as a translation for 藥 (pinyin: yào).

A Nature editorial described TCM as "fraught with pseudoscience", and said that the most obvious reason why it has not delivered many cures is that the majority of its treatments have no logical mechanism of action. Research into the effectiveness of traditional Chinese medicinal therapy is of poor quality and often tainted by bias, with little or no rigorous evidence of efficacy. There are concerns over a number of potentially toxic Chinese medicinals, including Aristolochia which is thought to cause cancer.

History

The practice of Chinese materia medica stretches back for millennia. The earliest written record of prescriptions is the manuscript Recipes for 52 Ailments (五十二病方; Wǔshí'èr Bìngfāng), discovered in the Mawangdui tombs, which were sealed in 168 BCE.

Later tradition credits the legendary figure Shénnóng (神農, lit. "Divine Farmer") as the founder of Chinese materia medica. He is said to have lived around 2800 BCE and to have tasted hundreds of substances to ascertain their medicinal value. The first and most important herbal classic attributed to him is the Shénnóng Běn Cǎo Jīng (神農本草經; "Shennong's Materia Medica"). While the original text has been lost, it was transcribed and preserved in later commentaries. Modern scholarly research suggests that the text was compiled in the late Western Han period, likely around the first century BCE, and was not written by a single author. The Běn Cǎo Jīng classifies 365 substances, including plants, animals, and minerals into three categories:

  1. "Superior" (上品; shàng pǐn): substances considered safe for long-term consumption to maintain health, with few to no side effects.
  2. "Medium" (中品; zhōng pǐn): substances with some therapeutic action that may have mild toxicity depending on the dosage.
  3. "Inferior" (下品; xià pǐn): substances taken for specific illnesses, often for shorter periods, as they are considered to have a higher potential for toxicity.

The next pivotal work was the Treatise on Cold Damage Disorders and Miscellaneous Illnesses (傷寒雜病論; Shānghán Zábìng Lùn), compiled by Zhang Zhongjing near the end of the Han dynasty (c. 196–220 CE). It is the first medical text that organized therapeutic principles around the diagnosis of symptom patterns (證; zheng), and it combined Yinyang and Five Phases theory with specific medicinal prescriptions. After passing through numerous changes, the original work now circulates as two separate books: the Treatise on Cold Damage Disorders and the Essential Prescriptions of the Golden Casket, which were edited separately in the eleventh century during the Song dynasty.

Succeeding generations augmented these works, as in the Yaoxing Lun (藥性論; 药性论; 'Treatise on the Nature of Medicinals'), a 7th-century Tang dynasty Chinese treatise on medicinal substances.

There was a shift in emphasis in treatment over several centuries. A section of the Huangdi Neijing Suwen including Chapter 74 was added by Wang Bing in his 765 edition, which says: 主病之謂君, 佐君之謂臣, 應臣之謂使, 非上下三品之謂也.; "The ruler of the disease is called the Sovereign, the aid to the Sovereign is called the Minister, the one that complies with the Minister is called the Envoy (Assistant), this is not a distinction between the three ranks of superior and inferior." The last part is interpreted as stating that these three rulers are not the three classes of Shénnóng mentioned previously. This chapter in particular outlines a more forceful approach. Later on Zhang Zihe (a.k.a. Zhang Cong-zhen, 1156–1228) is credited with founding the 'Attacking School' which criticized the overuse of tonics.

Arguably the most important of these later works is the Compendium of Materia Medica (本草綱目; Bencao Gangmu) compiled during the Ming dynasty by Li Shizhen, which is still used today for consultation and reference.

The use of Chinese herbs was popular during the medieval age in western Asian and Islamic countries. They were traded through the Silk Road from the East to the West. Cinnamon, ginger, rhubarb, nutmeg and cubeb are mentioned as Chinese herbs by medieval Islamic medical scholars Such as Rhazes (854–925 CE), Haly Abbas (930–994 CE) and Avicenna (980–1037 CE). There were also multiple similarities between the clinical uses of these herbs in Chinese and Islamic medicine.

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