By Eric Brand

We just got the Blue Poppy office hooked up with an incredible online resource for Chinese medical research. Essentially we got a private version of the institutional software system that Chinese universities use, which contains 98% of all Chinese journals. In terms of Chinese medicine, this single tool is staggering in its depth and potential. Beyond Chinese medicine, we seem to have access to countless Chinese journals on Western medicine, language, culture, and scientific disciplines. In fact, it is such a huge treasure trove that Bob and I have not even fully figured out how deep it goes.

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So far the main two resources that I’ve been exploring are PhD dissertations and TCM journals. We have access to the full text articles of 89 different TCM journals, which can be digitally searched for any given topic. Most of the journals have full-text versions of every article for the past ten years. The amount of data that is there to be uncovered is astounding- I got almost 20,000 hits for ginseng, about 500 hits for articles on granule research, and about 3,600 articles on the TCM treatment of angina. The section on dissertations is astounding, with literally millions of dissertations on general topics and tens of thousands of dissertations on TCM topics. More information than an emperor ever had access to, and the ability to search the whole collection digitally makes research a breeze.

This resource complements the extensive collection of physical books that Bob and I have available here at the Blue Poppy library. These tools are open to the public and free, and we encourage local practitioners to come by to take advantage of these resources. If you can read Chinese, it is definitely worth checking out. Just bring your laptop and come visit us, we’ll get you plugged in and connected to this mind-blowing research tool. This one resource alone is enough to make one want to learn Chinese. Most of the formulas used in our Blue Poppy Originals products are rooted in formulas from clinical journals that Bob painstakingly researched the old-fashioned way. Now this amazing new tool will allow us to research studies with greater ease when we design future products.

Over time, I’ll try to translate little pieces that catch my eye to share here on the blog. Don’t read Chinese? Already memorized the 1400 research articles on the Blue Poppy Infoline and exhausted the hundreds of articles in our blog archives? Try checking out some of these other Chinese medicine blogs and info-rich sites online, all these are free resources:

The Spice Doc – One of my favorite blogs, written by Chicago-based acupuncturist Nicole Sheldon. Her blog features great recipes, photos, and a wonderful fusion of Chinese medicine and food.

White Pine blog- A great blog on Chinese medicine from Sharon Weizenbaum.

The Lantern- A TCM journal that has some nice articles available for free under the “scholarly resources” section.

Legendary Herbs- Lots of articles available under the Professional Corner.

Paradigm Publications- Some excellent articles on language and Chinese medicine.

Michael Max’s blog- Thoughts on the classics and other fun stuff

Trevor Erikson’s blog- Great resource for dermatology

Thomas Garran’s blog- Fun blog from an herbal adventurer in China, great East-West botanical info

Case Studies- A collection of case studies from Jason Blalack with commentary

Eric Grey's blog Deepest Health

Chinese Medicine Times- Attilio D’Alberto’s resource-rich free publication.

Fat Turtle- Jonah Ewell’s blog is always top-notch.

Chinese Herb Garden is full of beautiful artistic photos of live medicinal plants, mostly by Jasmine Rose Oberste

Prof. Zhao Zhongzhen’s blog and Prof. Huang Huang’s classical formula salon are great resources for Chinese readers.

Enjoy! If you find some other great blogs out there, post them in the comments.