Chinese food therapy is a mode of dieting rooted in Chinese beliefs concerning the effects of food on the human organism, and centered on concepts such as seasonal eating and in moderation. Its basic precepts are a mix of Taoist Wuxing and eight principle theory that are concepts drawn from the modern representation of traditional Chinese medicine.
Chinese herbology is the theory of traditional Chinese herbal therapy, which accounts for the majority of treatments in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). A Nature editorial described TCM as "fraught with pseudoscience", and said that the most obvious reason why it has not delivered many cures is that the majority of its treatments have no logical mechanism of action.
Merfolk, Mercreatures, Mermen or Merpeople are legendary water-dwelling, human-like beings. They are attested in folklore and mythology throughout the ages in various parts of the world. Merfolk, Merpeople, or simply Mer refers to humanoid creatures that live in deep waters like Mermaids, Sirens, Cecaelia etc.
Snake wine is an alcoholic beverage produced by infusing whole snakes in rice wine or grain alcohol. The drink was first recorded to have been consumed in China during the Western Zhou dynasty and believed in folklore to reinvigorate a person according to Traditional Chinese medicine. It can be found in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, North Korea, Goa (India), Vietnam, Okinawa (Japan), Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and throughout Southeast Asia.
The Penghou is a tree spirit from Chinese mythology and folklore. Two Chinese classics record similar versions of the Penghou myth.
Li Shizhen, courtesy name Dongbi, was a Chinese acupuncturist, herbalist, naturalist, pharmacologist, physician, and writer of the Ming dynasty. He is the author of a 27-year work, the Compendium of Materia Medica. He developed several methods for classifying herb components and medications for treating diseases.
A mellified man, also known as a human mummy confection, was a legendary medicinal substance created by steeping a human cadaver in honey. The concoction is detailed in Chinese medical sources, including the Bencao Gangmu of the 16th century. Relying on a second-hand account, the text reports a story that some elderly men in Arabia, nearing the end of their lives, would submit themselves to a process of mummification in honey to create a healing confection.
Shennong Bencaojing is a Chinese book on agriculture and medicinal plants, traditionally attributed to Shennong. Researchers believe the text is a compilation of oral traditions, written between the first and second centuries AD. The original text no longer exists, but is said to have been composed of three volumes containing 365 entries on medicaments and their description.
A shōjō is the Japanese reading of Chinese xing-xing (猩猩) or its older form sheng sheng, which is a mythical primate, though it has been tentatively identified with an orangutan species.
A shuihu or shui hu, is a legendary creature said to have inhabited river systems in what is now Hubei Province in China.
Fengli is a legendary or mythified flying mammal of China, whose descriptions from various sources were collated in the Taiping Yulan encyclopedia and the Bencao gangmu compendium of materia medica.
The (1406) Jiuhuang bencao, written by the Ming dynasty prince Zhu Su (朱橚), was the first illustrated botanical manual for famine foods—wild food plants suitable for survival during times of famine.
Li Shizhen's (1597) Bencao gangmu, the classic materia medica of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), included 35 human drugs, including organs, bodily fluids, and excreta. Crude drugs derived from the human body were commonplace in the early history of medicine. Some of these TCM human drug usages are familiar from alternative medicine, such as medicinal breast milk and urine therapy. Others are uncommon, such as the "mellified man", which was a western nostrum allegedly prepared from the mummy of a holy man who only ate honey during his last days and whose corpse had been immersed in honey for 100 years. Li condemned the usage of most items listed in the section.
For over two millennia, texts in Chinese herbology and traditional Chinese medicine have recorded medicinal plants that are also hallucinogens and psychedelics. Some are familiar psychoactive plants in Western herbal medicine, but several Chinese plants have not been noted as hallucinogens in modern works. Chinese herbals are an important resource for the history of botany, for instance, Zhang Hua's c. 290 Bowuzhi is the earliest record of the psilocybin mushroom xiàojùn 笑菌.
Tang Shenwei, courtesy name Shenyuan, was a Chinese physician of the Song dynasty. He compiled an influential pharmacopoeia, Zhenglei bencao (證類本草).
The Xinxiu bencao, also known as the Tang bencao, is a Chinese pharmacopoeia written in the Tang dynasty by a team of officials and physicians headed by editor-in-chief Su Jing. It borrowed heavily from—and expanded upon—the earlier Bencao jing jizhu by Tao Hongjing. The text was first published in 659; although it is now considered lost in China, at least one copy exists in Japan, where the text had been transmitted to in 721.
Wang Haogu, courtesy name Haizang, was a Chinese physician and writer. He authored a treatise on insanity and its remedies, in addition to a materia medica that uniquely categorised drugs according to the theory of the wuxing.
Long gu are remains of ancient life prescribed for a variety of ailments in Chinese medicine and herbalism. They were historically believed, and are traditionally considered, to be the remains of dragons.
The huoshu or huo shu (火鼠), meaning fire rat or fire mouse is a fantastical beast in Chinese tradition.
Human faeces has been used in traditional medicine, namely in traditional Chinese medicine and in traditional Tibetan medicine. From China, the practice also spread to Korea, although there, the practice was rare in the past and has since virtually ceased.
