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.
Traditional medicine comprises medical aspects of traditional knowledge that developed over generations within the folk beliefs of various societies, including indigenous peoples, before the era of modern medicine. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines traditional medicine as "the sum total of the knowledge, skills, and practices based on the theories, beliefs, and experiences indigenous to different cultures, whether explicable or not, used in the maintenance of health as well as in the prevention, diagnosis, improvement and treatment of physical and mental illness". Traditional medicine is often contrasted with Evidence based medicine.
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.
Traditional Korean medicine refers to the forms of traditional medicine practiced in Korea.
The Bencao gangmu, known in English as the Compendium of Materia Medica or Great Pharmacopoeia, is an encyclopedic gathering of medicine, natural history, and Chinese herbology compiled and edited by Li Shizhen and published in the late 16th century, during the Ming dynasty. Its first draft was completed in 1578 and printed in Nanjing in 1596. The Compendium lists the materia medica of traditional Chinese medicine known at the time, including plants, animals, and minerals that were believed to have medicinal properties.
Kampo or Kanpō medicine, often known simply as Kanpō, is the study of traditional Japanese medicine in Japan following its introduction, beginning in the 7th century. It was adapted and modified to suit Japanese culture and traditions. Traditional Japanese medicine uses most of the Chinese methods, including acupuncture, moxibustion, traditional Chinese herbology, and traditional food therapy.
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.
Gynostemma pentaphyllum, also called jiaogulan, is a dioecious, herbaceous climbing vine of the family Cucurbitaceae widely distributed in South and East Asia as well as New Guinea.
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.
Blood stasis (BS) is a concept in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), described as a slowing or pooling of the blood due to a disruption of heart qi. Blood stasis is also described by practitioners of TCM in terms of yin deficiency, qi deficiency and qi stagnation. For non-practitioners of TCM it is sometimes explained in terms of hematological disorders such as hemorrhage, congestion, thrombosis or local ischemia, and in terms of tissue changes. TCM practitioners believe it is an important underlying pathology of many disease processes despite the fact that objective, consistent methods for measuring the presence of blood stasis syndrome are not readily available. Blood stasis is associated with justifications for acupuncture and herbal treatments.
Tetrahydropalmatine (THP) is an isoquinoline alkaloid found in several different plant species, mainly in the genus Corydalis, but also in other plants such as Stephania rotunda. These plants have traditional uses in Chinese herbal medicine. The pharmaceutical industry has synthetically produced the more potent enantiomer Levo-tetrahydropalmatine (Levo-THP), which has been marketed worldwide under different brand names as an alternative to anxiolytic and sedative drugs of the benzodiazepine group and analgesics such as opiates. It is also sold as a dietary supplement.
Feces are the solid or semi-solid remains of food that was not digested in the small intestine, and has been broken down by bacteria in the large intestine. Feces contain a relatively small amount of metabolic waste products such as bacterially altered bilirubin, and dead epithelial cells from the lining of the gut.
Huáng bǎi, huáng bó or huáng bò is one of the fifty fundamental herbs of traditional Chinese medicine. Known also as Cortex Phellodendri, it is the bark of one of two species of Phellodendron tree: Phellodendron amurense or Phellodendron chinense.
Osmanthus wine, also known as cassia wine or Kuei Hua Chen Chiew, is a Chinese alcoholic beverage produced from weak baijiu and flavored with sweet osmanthus flowers. It is distilled but typically has an alcohol content less than 20%.
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).
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.
