Herbology is traditionally one of the more important modalities utilized in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Each herbal medicine prescription is a cocktail of many herbs tailored to the individual patient. The herbs are simmered in water over several hours to reduce to a cup of concentrated herbal tea. A typical prescription reduces from eight bowls of water into one bowl of herbal tea (a rice bowl is the usual measuring device in prescriptions.) 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 will be ineffective. The latter steps require great experience and knowledge, and make the difference between a good Chinese herbal doctor and an amateur. Unlike western medications, the balance and interaction of all the ingredients are more important than the effect of individual ingredients. A key to success in TCM is the treatment of each patient as an individual.
Chinese herbology often incorporates ingredients from all parts of plants (leaf, stem, flower, root) but also ingredients from animals and minerals. The use of parts of endangered animals has created controversy and resulted in a black market of poachers who hunt restricted animals. Most herbal manufacturers have discontinued the use of any animal parts from endangered animals.
See also
Herbalism, for the use of medicinal herbs in other traditions.
In the West, traditional Chinesemedicine is often considered alternative medicine; however, in mainland China and Taiwan, TCM is widely considered to be an integral part of the health care system.
Traditional Chinesemedicine is largely based on the philosophical concept that the human body is a small universe with a set of complete and sophisticated interconnected systems, and that those systems usually work in balance to maintain the healthy function of the human body.
Chineseherbalmedicine includes many compounds which are unused by Western medicine, and there is great interest in those compounds as well as the theories which TCM practitioners use to determine which compound to prescribe.
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