Jade Remedies: Chinese Herbal Reference for the West, Vol 1

Description

By Peter Holmes
Trade paperback book
ISBN 9781890029289
442 pages

Jade Remedies is a comprehensive, detailed and contemporary reference source for the remedies used in Oriental herbal medicine. Based on many years of research into historical and modern sources, it presents over 450 plant, mineral, and animal remedies used worldwide in Chinese medicine. The remedies are divided into four types; “restoratives,” “stimulants,” “relaxants,” and “sedatives.” The text provides up-to-date information on botanical sources, plant habits, biochemistry, pharmacology, energetic properties, therapeutic actions and indications, preparation forms, dosages, cautions and contraindications. The primary remedies are illustrated with botanically accurate wood-block prints of the plants in the wild from the Zhi Wu Ming Shi Tu Kao of 1848, the Chinese manual of medicinal plant illustrations.
Jade Remedies spells out clearly and concisely the functions and uses of Chinese herbs in easily-understood Western terms. It summarizes, distills and evaluates the modern pharmacological uses of Oriental remedies by Western medical doctors in East Asia, and organizes the Oriental materia medica according to Western body systems rather than the traditional energetic treatment categories. Thus the information on these remedies sought by the student, practitioner or researcher unfamiliar with Oriental medicine is immediately available. As a Western rendition of the Oriental materia medica, Jade Remedies represents a much-needed complement to the standard Oriental version (whether in the Western or Chinese languages).

Nevertheless, for each remedy the text retains the traditional usage by symptom picture, or pattern of disharmony-indications familiar to Oriental practitioners. By including Western and Oriental information side-by-side, it forms a valuable bridge between Western and Oriental pathology and herbal therapeutics, allowing practitioners of both systems to better understand each other’s therapeutic rationales.

Volume 2 is a continuation of the materia medica, and contains herbs for the musculoskeletal, nervous, and endocrine systems, and herbs for infection and tissue trauma. This volume also includes the master index for both volumes, containing information such as all the Western diseases, chemical constitutents, and therapeutic selections, providing added utility to the text as a whole.