Insights and Updates

Huai Er (also called Huai E or Huai Ji) is a fungus that grows on trees such as the Chinese pagoda tree, the black locust, and the tall wingnut; its scientific name is Trametes robiniophila (Huai Shuan Jun), mainly distributed in North China and Shaanxi.

Xiao Ai Ping is a commonly used Chinese patent medicine. It comes in oral tablets (Xiao Ai Ping Pian) and syrup (Xiao Ai Ping Tangjiang), as well as an injection (Xiao Ai Ping Zhusheye); its ingredient in all forms is the black-bone vine (Wugu Teng).

In Chan Buddhism there is a koan called "the plum is ripe." Da Mei, a disciple of Master Mazu Daoyi, asked Mazu: "What is the Buddha?" Mazu answered: "The very mind is the Buddha." Hearing this, Da Mei was immediately enlightened. A few years later,…

Professor Liu Fangbo believes that the most effective way to raise the clinical efficacy of physicians is to start from "formula-pattern" (fangzheng); I agree with this view. The key to TCM pattern differentiation and treatment is "for this pattern, use this medicine" and "treat according…

Many people grow Madagascar periwinkle (changchunhua) on their balconies. It blooms almost year-round, hence the name "long-spring flower." It is an ornamental plant well suited to home cultivation, and it is also the raw material for one of the most famous chemotherapy drugs, vinblastine. Madagascar…

Besides oral medicines, Chinese medicine has always had external medications. With the development of the times, some of the older external methods are now gradually being combined with modern technology; the suppository is one of them. A suppository is a dosage form in which Chinese…

I rented a plot of vegetable land on the outskirts of Beijing—turning the soil, sowing, watering, and clearing a small garden. After a little over a week, the little garden finally began to look like a garden. The seedlings are thriving; the chives have already…

Houttuynia (yuxingcao) is a plant well known to the Chinese as both a medicine and a food, and the custom of eating it is widespread across many parts of China. Everyone knows that after a hotpot meal, a cup of houttuynia tea can clear heat…

The ancients said that many who study TCM "begin in childhood and, with white hair, still do not grasp its source" (from the Lu preface to Jingyue Quanshu)—a way of saying how hard TCM is. After thousands of years of accumulation, TCM books are beyond…

Anthropologists study the coprolites (fossilized feces) of ancient people to learn their diets. Coprolites contain many things—pollen, plant crystals, feathers, bones, hair, eggshells—which help us understand what our ancestors ate day to day. Beyond doubt, the diet of early humans was far broader than that…