Talk:Chinese herbology

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Contents 1 Pronunciation 2 Redirection 3 50 fundamental herbs 4 Critical Evaluation

[edit] Pronunciation

If herbology is the study of herbs, why is it pronounced "HERB-ol-o-gy" when herb is pronounced "ERB"?? Unsigned comment by 24.176.65.31

Because in American English we affect a French accent for this word (silent "H") but in British English they say the "H."

[edit] Redirection

Why does this page redirect to Chinese herbology?

[edit] 50 fundamental herbs

I added 28 of the 50 fundamental herbs (the other 22 can't be found online easily). Badagnani 23:41, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm a student of Chinese Medicine and cannot recall any discussion of "50 Fundamental Herbs"...is there some classical source for this? All I could see was a link to a website with an entry about a single herb "Sheng Di Huang"... --—Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.200.39.156 (talk • contribs)

It's a list from the book of Wong Ming (Wong, Ming (1976). La Médecine chinoise par les plantes. Le Corps a Vivre series. Éditions Tchou). Maybe he came up with it on his own, or it's based on traditional concepts. Some of the more commonly used herbs aren't in the list, which is strange. The link I gave discusses that herb as one of the 50. Badagnani 21:41, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

This list conveys a completely inaccurate picture of modern Chinese medical praxis. Indeed, it is almost bizarre, listing many herbs that are highly uncommon and only a few of the more commonly used ones. I can't imagine any modern Chinese practitioner coming up with such a list (indeed, they'd have to look up quite a few of these herbs). Even if it can be proven that there is a list of "50 fundamental herbs" in some classical source, that source text should be cited and a historical analysis added that places the list into context. If it's just an arbitrary list from some 30-year old source, then it should be scrapped altogether. --—Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.122.219.100 (talk • contribs)

Can someone give the common names of these herbs? The scientific names aren't very helpful when briefly scanning the article. ~Anon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.22.214.85 (talk) 19:34, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Critical Evaluation

This discussion of Chinese Herbology is entirely uncritical. There needs to be an honest assessment of the efficacy of Chinese treatments compared to modern - ie "evidence-based" - medicine. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 74.32.117.188 (talk) 04:52, 12 February 2007 (UTC).

The fact is there are tons and tons of scientific articles on the effect of Chinese medicinals...the only problem is they are mostly written in Chinese and not many people are concerned with translating them. Though it is an anecdotal commonplace that Western biochemists are scouring the Chinese Materia Medica for drugs to patent. One famous example is Qing Hao (Artemisia Annua Herba) which had success as an anti-malarial agent...just look up Qing Hao Su on google. "Su" here indicates that it is a constituent or active principle that has been isolated from the original herb. Also, the herb Huang Qi (Astragalus Membranaceus) has been show to have If you are seriously interested in this, please refer to the book Chinese Herbology & Pharmacology [ISBN: 0-9740635-0-9] by John K. Chen who is both a Western trained Pharmacologist and Chinese Herbologist. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.169.188.225 (talk) 16:30, 4 April 2008 (UTC)