Chapter three Chinese medicinal herbs Traditional Chinese medical prescriptions

The basic therapeutic methods  Eight basic therapeutic methods  Han (diaphoresis)  Tu (emesis)  Xia (purgation)  He (mediation)  Wen (warming)  Qing (heat-clearing)  Xiao (resolution)  Bu (invigorating, tonifying or reinforcing)

 Chinese medicinal herbs  Chinese materia medica  Plants, animal parts, and minerals  Flowers, herbs, trees, insects, fish, birds, iron and stone

 Four properties  Cold Heat Warm Cool  Five tastes  Sour Bitter Sweet Acrid (pungent-spicy) Salty  The properties is not obvious

 Ascending descending floating sinking  Meridian that a herb enters  Toxic nontoxic strongly toxic slightly toxic  The combination of herbs  Dosage

 Traditional Chinese medical prescriptions  Recipes or formulas  The prescriptions in TCM are not merely collections of medicinal substances in which the actions of one herb are simply added to those of another in a cumulative fashion.

 An effective prescription is one in which the substances are carefully balanced to accentuate the strengths and reduce the side effects.  The combination of substances in a prescription creates a new therapeutic agent that can treat conditions more effectively and completely than a single substance.

 Jun monarch-ingredient  usually translated into monarch, king, principal or chief  Chen minister-ingredient  usually translated into assistant or adjutant  Zuo assistant-ingredient  usually translated into minister, adjutant, associate or deputy  Shi guide-ingredient  usually translated into guide, messenger, conductant or envoy

 Decoction 汤 剂  Powder 散 剂  Bolus ， pellet ， pill 丸 剂  Honeyed bolus ； Water pellet ； Condensed pellet  Paste ， ointment ， salve 膏 剂  Tablet 片 剂  Syrup 糖浆剂  Injection 注射剂  Capsule 胶 囊

 Diaphoresis 汗法  Known as exterior-relieving method used to open the muscular interstices and relieve exterior syndrome with herbs which can relieve the exterior and induce sweating.  To treated exogenous disease at the early stage with the symptoms of chills and fever, headache, whitish tongue coating and floating pulse, etc.

 Also used to treat edema above the waist, early stage of carbuncle 痈 and ulcer as well as inhibited eruption of measles 麻疹 with the same manifestations mentioned above.