DAAN Chinese Herbs and Acupuncture

Western scientists have created a different method of classifying Chinese herbs, in a bid to make them more relevant and understandable to westerners:

“David J. Barlow, Thomas M. Ehrman, and Peter J. Hylands point out that traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) - regarded by many Western experts as an archaic system doomed to extinction 50 years ago - has undergone a “remarkable renaissance” in recent years.

However, the arcane language used to describe categories of medication in TCM has hindered effective understanding of one of the most developed and mature systems of alternative medicine in existence.

To overcome that barrier, the researchers analyzed patterns among 8411 compounds from 240 Chinese herbs in relation to the categories found in traditional Chinese medicine. Organizing their findings in a kind of herbal “map,” their results reveal that many categories in Chinese medicine are amenable to translation to Western terminology. TCM’s “fire poison” group, for example, is comparable to today’s family of anti-inflammatory medicines.

Now, future researchers will better understand the chemical basis of remedies that have been in use for thousands of years, the study indicated. “

Tags: East and West //