It is difficult for a non-Chinese speaking person to learn Chinese herbal therapy. The main reason is that most of the literatures and books have not been translated into English yet. You may find some books on the introduction of the herbal therapy, from which you may learn the basic idea and term explanation, but it is far away enough to allow you to practice the herbal therapy in your clinic.

It is difficult to translate the books from Chinese to English for several reasons:

(1), the old Chinese is different from the current Chinese. It is the same as the old English is not the current English. The ways to express their meaning by old Chinese masters are somehow different from the current Chinese. A translator must have a good knowledge of old Chinese;

(2), along the long history, the older books have been re-copied by hands from person to person, that created some errors from the original books. There could have quite different opinions, among later doctors, for how to understand the original meaning of the masters;

(3), the translator must be a clinic doctor, not a scholar or a researcher. The person must have rich clinic experience to understand the meaning of the words in the old TCM books;

 (4), the translator must also know English as well, so be able to find as much as possible proper English expression to explain the meaning in English. In translation industry, we believe that the best way is to let a translator translate a foreign language into the translator’s mother language. It is so hard to have such person in the world. We have experience that, to translate English books into Chinese, the Chinese version could be very interesting in its spirit, while the book from Chinese to English (such as translate the Chinese poem into English), the English version becomes very plain, no taste any longer;

(5), The Chinese have different ways or philosophy to look at the nature, the body, structure and function,

so have quite different ways to express their meaning, compared with the English speaking people. Therefore, the difficulty is not only the term that is new to the English speaking people, but in many times, it needs the reader to change the ways of thinking. So many times, there is no proper word in English to express exactly the meaning in Chinese. To solve this problem, we insist to use the Chinese word exactly (of course in Pinyin, not in character), rather than to find a English word that is closer to the Chinese in meaning.

There are tens of thousands of books in TCM herbal therapy. The education system introduced here, the main one is the << Shanghan Lun >>,  is not at all the ones used as text book by almost any of the TCM schools in China or in other countries.

The book series here are not touch as text book in China, for some major reasons:

(1), there has been severe infectious diseases in China in history, at which time, doctors use different herbs to solve the disasters. The herbs used at that time are less in doses, and appear more “safe” (so called) than the herbs used in this book. Thereafter, the doctors like that kinds of herbal formula in clinic;

(2), the text book currently used in the TCM school in China and out of China is set up mostly by doctors they are originally western medicine doctor and learned the TCM later. They have no strong TCM back ground for the significance of the books here in the TCM education. The textbook they organized is based on the western medicine textbook style, which appear simple and easy to understand and to remember, but not a good ways to meet the clinic needs;

(3), the dose introduced in the book << Shanghan Lun >> has been less used (for some already known reasons now) by later doctors, so their clinic effects are not as excellent in clinic;

(more)

<<医宗金鉴>> 之<<金匮要略>>部分

医理真传

Yi Li Zhen Chuan

原著     清  ·  郑钦安

Author; Zhen Qin-An (Qing dynasty, China)

(Partly translated)

In the Traditional Chinese medicine area, it is not hard to know how to use herbs for treatment, but hard to recognize the conditions for the use of the herbs (e.g. it is hard to diagnose). Again, it might not be hard to make a diagnosis, but hard to identify the Yin or Yang condition in the body. The Yin and Yang together develop into the Five elements. The Yin and Yang, the Five-elements are constantly under increase or decrease, consumption or supplication. Their changes can be largely variable. Any mistake or error during this course would cause a disease condition. How it could be easy to find reason(s) for a disease and how it could be easy to find the location/step the disease is? In Clinic, there are many situations in which the diagnosis is not clear, and it is hard to make a clear diagnosis. There could be evidence(s) suggesting this disease condition, but could be other evidence(s) suggesting some other disease condition. This is a quiet common experience for a doctor, no matter he is a Chinese medicine doctor or a western medicine doctor. If the diagnosis is not clear, how could we avoid the delay of the treatment and avoid not cause the death of a patient?

 

Statement by the author Yin and Yang concept Qi and Blood concept King Fire & Xiang Fire True Dragon Three Jiao concept Five Yun concept Qi-blood deficiency Diagnosis of Yang deficiency Diagnosis of Yin deficiency Out-coming disease Inner-damage disease Diagnosis processes

Outlines of six disease stages Taiyang stage Yangming stage Shaoyang stage Taiyin stage Shaoyin stage Jueyin stage Yang deficiency Questions to the Yang deficiency Yin deficiency