A few years ago I went to visit a friend of my in northern California (identity and town to remain unnamed). An early adopter of Chinese medicine, he'd had a practice for many years and was quite successful, with plenty of patients, a couple of apprentices who rented space and copied his style, a lovely reception person, and a good location in the center of town.

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One of my jobs here at Blue Poppy is to write at least one blog each week. Most weeks I don't have too much trouble figuring out a subject, but some weeks my brain needs a kickstart or there are so many things on my plate, I can't slow down long enough to write. Today is one of those days.

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by Eric Brand

Today in clinic we were looking for Sang Ji Sheng on the shelf, and one of the students filling the formula couldn't remember whether it was classified as a wind-damp-dispelling medicinal or whether they should look for it on the yin-supplementing shelf. Actually, it could be easily placed on either shelf, and different books classify it differently. A similar situation is true for a number of medicinals.

Chinese herbal medicine as we know it today has advanced gradually over the past 1800 years. Throughout much of Chinese medicine’s history, the body of available literature has been vast but rather difficult to navigate by modern standards. The idea of an index is relatively new, and often indexes in Chinese texts even today are not as useful as they could be. Other features of historical Chinese works, such as the traditional binding method and the lack of punctuation, made the ancient literature much harder to deal with. Certainly ancient doctors didn’t have the ability to do a simultaneous digital search of modern and classic texts when they wanted to research a topic.

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By Eric Brand

Wan Dai Tang (Discharge-Ceasing Decoction) is one of the most important formulas for the treatment of abnormal vaginal discharge. Wan Dai Tang came from one of the most important historical texts on gynecology, a Qing dynasty text called Fu Qing-Zhu’s Gynecology (Fu Qing Zhu Nu Ke). Fu Qing-Zhu's Gynecology, which has been translated in English by Bob Flaws, contains both theory and formulas and is a particularly good source for discussions on vaginal discharge. The heavy emphasis on the role of the liver, spleen, and kidney in modern Chinese medical gynecology has been influenced by Fu Qing Zhu's work, and he also made major contributions to the development of qi/blood and chong/ren theory.

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By Eric Brand

All first-year TCM students have memorized that the liver governs the tendons according to Chinese medicine. This original statement of fact, laid down in the Nei Jing about 2000 years ago, is generally accepted without question. However, the ancient method of differentiating the body's various tissues is somewhat different than our modern biomedical understanding, and the precise tissue type referred to in the Nei Jing is a bit more complex in nuance than the biomedical term tendon suggests. In fact, one could argue that the translation of the Chinese word "jin" as “tendon” represents a true error in translation, and it is one that has permeated the Western TCM community.

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