Traditional Chinese Medicine Treatments: Medicinal Decoctions
Actually, there's a lot to cover about diagnosis, and Su Ziyang can't go into detail, otherwise it would take half a month to explain everything. Besides, going into too much detail would be too profound and unsuitable for people interested in traditional Chinese medicine.
It's not like giving a lecture to university students; you can only scratch the surface and not delve into the subject deeply.
Otherwise, it will only confuse people more and more, and will have the opposite effect.
So, in this lesson, Su Ziyang started by asking a question.
Do you know what methods Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) uses to treat illnesses?
After two days of speaking, everyone is quite familiar with each other.
So they all answered.
Acupuncture!
Take the herbal medicine.
Cupping!
Moxibustion!
massage.
Everyone gave their answers, but the most common response was to take the herbal medicine.
Because traditional Chinese medicine is now almost synonymous with Chinese herbal medicine.
Most people go to see a traditional Chinese medicine doctor just to take some herbal decoctions.
So the third thing Su Ziyang wants to talk about is herbal decoctions.
What are herbal decoctions made of?
Su Ziyang asked a question that seemed idiotic.
The crowd was a little confused, but they still murmured hesitantly, "Traditional Chinese medicine?"
Su Ziyang then asked, "Does everyone know how many kinds of Chinese medicine there are?"
Everyone was speechless!
Su Ziyang then began his lecture.
Traditional Chinese medicine is divided into three types, mainly plant-based medicines, but also including animal-based and mineral-based medicines.
The use of traditional Chinese medicine is not based on random combinations of experience, but on a complete theoretical system, the core of which is the theory of medicinal properties and the rules of compatibility.
The properties of medicine, also known as the four natures and five flavors, are the basic properties and characteristics of the effects of traditional Chinese medicine.
The four properties of medicine refer to cold, heat, warmth, and coolness, also known as the four natures.
The properties of a drug are derived from the reactions of the human body to the drug:
Medicines that can alleviate or eliminate heat symptoms are classified as cold or cooling in nature;
Medicines that can alleviate or eliminate cold symptoms are classified as hot or warm in nature.
Cold and cooling medicines often have the effects of clearing heat, purging fire, and detoxifying, while warm and hot medicines often have the effects of warming the middle, dispelling cold, and assisting yang.
In addition, there are neutral medicines, which have mild medicinal properties and no obvious tendency to be hot or cold.
The five flavors refer to the five medicinal tastes: sour, bitter, sweet, pungent, and salty, as well as bland and astringent tastes.
The five flavors not only reflect the taste of the medicines, but also summarize the laws governing their effects:
Pungent flavors can disperse and promote circulation, and have the effects of dispersing, regulating qi, and activating blood circulation, such as ephedra and peppermint;
Sweet flavors can nourish, harmonize, and soothe, and have the effects of tonifying, harmonizing the middle, relieving spasms, and alleviating pain, such as Codonopsis pilosula and licorice.
Sour flavors can astringe and solidify, such as in Schisandra chinensis and dried plum;
Bitterness can purge and dry, and has the effects of clearing heat, purging fire, purging, and drying dampness, such as in Coptis chinensis and rhubarb;
Salty flavors can help to go down and soften, having the effects of purging, relieving constipation, softening hard masses, and dispersing nodules, such as Glauber's salt and oyster shells.
In addition to the four natures and five flavors, traditional Chinese medicine also has properties such as ascending and descending, floating and sinking, meridian tropism, and toxicity.
The terms "rising, falling, floating, and sinking" refer to the directional nature of a drug's action. Drugs that rise and float tend to rise outwards, while drugs that sink tend to fall inwards.
Meridian tropism refers to the selective therapeutic effects of drugs on different organs and meridians. For example, Coptis chinensis (Huanglian) tropizes the Heart Meridian and is good at clearing Heart Fire; Scutellaria baicalensis (Huangqin) tropizes the Lung Meridian and is good at clearing Lung Fire.
Regarding toxicity, traditional Chinese medicine says that "every medicine has some degree of toxicity." Here, "toxicity" refers to the inherent properties of the medicine, which are used to correct imbalances in the body's Yin and Yang.
In the modern sense, toxicity refers to the direct harm that drugs cause to the human body. Most commonly used Chinese medicines have very low toxicity, while a few have strong toxicity and must be strictly controlled in terms of dosage and usage.
Therefore, when discussing drug toxicity, one cannot ignore the process of drug preparation.
Processing is a distinctive step in traditional Chinese medicine, which involves processing the raw medicinal materials.
There are four purposes of processing:
First, it reduces or eliminates the toxicity and side effects of drugs;
Second, it enhances the efficacy of the drug;
Third, the properties of drugs can be modified to suit the needs of different conditions;
Fourth, it facilitates formulation and storage.
There are as many as seven kinds of Chinese herbal medicine combinations:
Alone, mutually dependent, mutually supportive, mutually fearful, mutually destructive, mutually hostile, opposite.
For example, the traditional "Eighteen Antidotes" and "Nineteen Fears," etc.