Insights and Updates

Houpo, commonly also called Liepu, Chipu, or Chuanpu, is the dried stem bark, root bark, or branch bark of Magnolia officinalis, a plant of the magnolia family. TCM holds that it is bitter and pungent in taste and warm in nature, entering the spleen, stomach,…

Professor Qian Ying was born in June 1937 and died on February 10, 2024, at the age of 87. He was a native of Hebei District, Tianjin. Influenced from childhood by a neighbor who was a doctor, he aspired to study medicine in order to…

Spring not yet old, the wind is fine and willows lean. Climb the Chaoran Terrace and gaze out: half a moat of spring water, a city full of flowers, misty rain dimming a thousand homes. After the Cold Food Festival, awake from wine, I heave…

In Xingyuan (Volume 4) there is a formula called Runxue Tang (“Blood-Moistening Decoction”). Its composition is: Dangguxu (Angelica tail) 1 qian 2 fen (3.6g); Chuanxiong (Ligusticum) 1 qian (3g); Marenzi (linseed) 1 qian (3g); Taoren (peach kernel, skin and tip removed) 1 qian (3g); Honghua…

Every upheaval and accident that befalls us in life is a help to the growth of our mind—provisions that make us wiser. ——Epigraph I do not know when, or why, I gave myself the nickname “Zhou Er Gou” (Zhou Number Two Dog). There is a…

Xiao Ban Qing Dai Yin (Indigo Drink for Dispelling Macules) was a famous historical formula for macules (purpura) in warm disease, and it is included in many medical works. The “Xiao Ban Qing Dai Yin” in Shanghan Liu Shu (Six Books on Cold Damage) is…

“Wu Long San” (Five-Dragon Powder) comes from Waike Chuanxin Ji (A Record Handed Down of External Medicine). Its composition is: Tiannanxing (raw Arisaema) 30g, Sheng Banxia (raw Pinellia) 15g, Quan Danggui (whole Angelica) 15g, Sheng Dahuang (raw Rheum) 15g, and Chen Xiaofen (aged wheat flour;…

Lee Hsien Loong traces his ancestry to Dabu County, Meizhou, Guangdong Province, China; he was born in Singapore on February 10, 1952. He is the eldest son of Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's founding Prime Minister, and became Singapore's third Prime Minister. Lee Hsien Loong studied…

In Rumen Shiqin (Confucian Duties to Parents) by Zhang Zihe, one of the four great masters of the Jin-Yuan period, there is a formula called “Hua Ying Dan” (Nodule-Transforming Elixir). Its composition is: Haidai (kelp), Haizao (Sargassum), Haige (clam shell), and Kunbu (thallus Eckloniae—the above…

Chronic atrophic gastritis is a precancerous lesion of gastric cancer; it is protracted and difficult to cure, its treatment is thorny, and patients often suffer from gastric distension and pain. Zhongguo Minjian Liaofa (Chinese Folk Therapy, 2004, 12(9): 45) once published an experiential formula for…