Insights and Updates

Mr. Feng Youlan said that Western philosophy is a philosophy of negation, whereas Eastern philosophy is a philosophy of the negation of the negation. Eastern philosophy stands to Western philosophy as an elder to a youth: it is a philosophy of a higher order. This…

Clinically, many late-stage cancer patients develop thirst to an almost unbearable degree; in the patients' own words, they want to soak themselves in water. This symptom has long been familiar in the case records of ancient wound physicians. In Wang Kentang's Zhengzhi Zhunsheng (Standards of…

Constipation must not be treated indiscriminately with laxatives. Patients are divided into excess-pattern and deficiency-pattern: excess patients may be purged, while deficiency patients should be supplemented. There is no supplementation method for excess constipation, and no purging method for deficiency constipation; when excess and deficiency…

Introduction to Baqia The Chinese medicinal herb Baqia (Smilax china L., Chinaroot Greenbrier) is also known as Jinganggu, Jingangteng, Tie Lingjiao, Jingangtou, Jingangci, and by other names. It belongs to the genus Smilax of the family Liliaceae. Clinically the rhizome is most often used, though…

My son spent a month on vacation in my hometown; as the new school term approached, I went back to fetch him to return to school in Beijing and stayed a few days there myself. The second day after I arrived, the father of one…

Sima Daoxin was a native of Yongning County (also known as Guangji County; present-day Meichuan Town, Wuxue City, Huanggang Prefecture, Hubei Province). His father, Sima Shen, was the first county magistrate after Yongning was established; the family ancestral home was Wen County, Henan. The county…

In Chinese society, whenever someone with a stubborn illness is treated successfully, people like to call the doctor a “divine healer” (shenyi). The title is meant as praise, but for a serious physician it is actually a warning. A real doctor does not rely on…

When I was young I was a fierce critic of Buddhism. I had read the philosophers and the scientists; I thought religion was superstition, that the talk of reincarnation and karma was the product of an ignorant age, and that any intelligent person should outgrow…

Mylabris (Banmao, the dried body of blister beetles such as Mylabris phalerata Pallas or Mylabris cichorii Linnaeus) is a pungent, hot, highly toxic Chinese herb that enters the liver, stomach, and large intestine channels. In TCM it has been used to break blood, disperse stasis,…

Many patients ask me how to take Chinese herbal medicine properly. Here are a few practical tips based on clinical experience. 1. Timing of the decoction. Most herbal decoctions are taken warm, divided into two doses a day, one in the morning and one in…