In 1626, a young man named Fei Shangyou moved his family to Menghe, a small town in the Yangzi delta of China. According to family legend, he abandoned his career as a scholar and began working as a physician. In doing so, he founded a medical lineage that continues to the present day. This book describes the development, flourishing, and decline of this lineage and its many branches, as well as that of the other medical lineages and families with which it merged over time to form the current of Menghe learning (Menghe xuepai). This current and its offshoots produced some of the most influential physicians in the Chinese medical tradition during the 19th and 20th centuries. Menghe physicians, their disciples and students treated emperors, imperial mandarins, Nationalist Party generals, leading figures in the Communist Party, affluent businessmen, and influential artists. In late imperial China, Menghe medicine was a self-conscious attempt to unite diverse strands of medical learning into one integrated tradition centered on ancient principles of practice. In Republican Shanghai, Menghe physicians and their students were at the forefront of medical modernization, establishing schools, professional associations, and journals that became models for others to follow. During the 1950s and 1960s, the heirs of Menghe medicine were key players in creating the institutional framework for contemporary Chinese medicine. Their students are now practicing all over the world, shaping Chinese medicine in Los Angeles, New York, Oxford, Mallorca, and Berlin. The history of the Menghe current is relevant to anyone interested in the development of Chinese medicine in late imperial and modern China. This book traces Chinese medical history along the currents created by generations of physicians linked to each other by a shared heritage of learning, by descent and kinship, by sentiments of native place as well as nationalist fervor, by personal rivalries and economic competition, by the struggle for the survival of tradition and glorious visions of a new global medicine. On the level of both theory and practice, this history marks a departure from the focus on texts and ideas that has dominated Western engagement with Chinese medicine to date. Its goal is to locate medicine within the concrete lives of physicians and their patients, restoring an agency to their actions that easily gets lost in our search for the forces or structures that shape historical process. To this end, the author interweaves social history and medical case studies, ethnography and biography to narrate a story of Chinese medicine that is very different from any that has been told before.

Currents of Tradition in Chinese Medicine 1626-2006

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Volker Scheid

Alternative Medicine

Eastland Press

The new portable edition of Chinese Herbal Medicine: Formulas &amp; Strategies (Portable 2nd Ed.), the companion volume to Chinese Herbal Medicine: Materia Medica, is designed to provide students and practitioners with the same comprehensive and authoritative content that they ve always relied on, but in a lightweight and more flexible format. Included are over 800 medicinal formulas drawn from both classical and modern sources. Each of the 340-plus principal formulas includes a discussion of its therapeutic actions and indications, analysis of the functions and interactions of the ingredients, method of preparation, and a list of modifications to customize the formula in the clinic. Over 460 variations and associated formulas offer additional options for the practitioner. The commentary to each formula is extensive. This section deepens the reader s understanding of a formula s genealogy, presents an overview of controversies regarding composition, usage, and other issues, describes the extension of a formula s application to a wider range of disorders, and provides key clinical pointers to facilitate use of the formula in the modern clinic. The section on comparisons helps the practitioner focus on the distinguishing characteristics of each formula by contrasting it with other formulas that are similar in terms of composition or indication. Tables at the end of each chapter reinforce these distinctions by comparing and contrasting formulas across a wider range. The introduction to the book traces the historical evolution of the formulas, and provides practical pointers for their preparation and use. Detailed timelines depict the key events, authors, and texts in the 2,000-year history of traditional Chinese herbal medicine, placing the contents of this book in historical context. Among the appendices are a pinyin-to-English cross reference to the formulas, a basic summary formulary correlated to symptoms and disorders, a full listing of all books cited in the text, and a bibliography of all modern sources used in the preparation of the book. A comprehensive index to the formulas, and a general index, round out the contents.

Chinese Herbal Medicine: Formulas & Strategies (Portable 2nd Edition)

Dan Bensky

Andrew Ellis

Randall Barolet

Handbook of Formulas in Chinese Medicine is a concise, visual reference to over 180 of the most important herbal formulas in Chinese medicine. The book is designed to provide a snapshot of the formulas and help the reader take in key information at a glance. Each formula is presented as a two-page spread. On the left is a drawing of a person showing an aspect that is typical of the type of patient for whom the formula might be prescribed. The drawing is labelled with key symptoms. Under the drawing is a list of ingredients followed by basic information: actions, main pattern, key and secondary symptoms, tongue, pulse and abdomen. This can be absorbed in just a few moments. Additional detail is set forth in clinical notes, and other formulas with similar indications are discussed for purposes of comparison. On the right page is a full display of the composition of the formula. Each of the ingredients is color coded to show its taste and temperature, and the overall nature of the formula warming, cooling, neutral etc. can be seen at a glance. The role that each ingredient plays in the formula (chief, deputy, assistant, envoy) as well as its actions are also shown. An introduction discusses how different types of processing affect the functions of particular herbs, and there is a helpful introduction to the Japanese approach to abdominal diagnosis and its value in prescribing herbs. A formula index (by pinyin and English common name) and an index of patterns and key symptoms are included.

Handbook of Formulas in Chinese Medicine

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