Chinese Herbal Medicine (pinyin: Zhōngyào xué), is the common name for the subject of Chinese materia medica, and is the Chinese art of combining medicinal herbs.
Herbology is traditionally one of the more important modalities utilized in Chinese medicine (CM). The practitioner usually designs a remedy using one or two main ingredients that target the illness. Then the practitioner adds many other ingredients to adjust the formula to the patient’s yin/yang conditions. Sometimes, ingredients are needed to cancel out toxicity or side-effects of the main ingredients. Some herbs require the use of other ingredients as catalyst or else the brew is ineffective. Unlike western medications, the balance and interaction of all the ingredients are considered more important than the effect of individual ingredients. A key to success in CM is the treatment of each patient as an individual.
Chinese patent medicine – characteristic little black pills of Chinese patent medicine
Chinese patent medicine (pinyin: zhōng chéng yào) are standardized herbal formulas. Several herbs and other ingredients are dried and ground. They are then mixed into a powder and formed into pills. The binder is traditionally honey. They are characteristically little round black pills.
Chinese patent medicines are easy and convenient. They are not easy to customize on a patient-by-patient basis, however. They are best used when a patient’s condition is not severe and the medicine can be taken as a long-term treatment.
These medicines are not “patented” in the traditional sense of the word. No one has exclusive rights to the formula. Instead, “patent” refers to the standardization of the formula. All Chinese patent medicines of the same name will have the same proportions of ingredients.
