Hello there Pharmer Thomas here coming to from Beijing, China to talk to you about the beginnings of a new line of products that are growing out of the Herban Pharmer group. In this first blog I want to take the opportunity to introduce the concept of integrating Western herbs into the Chinese medical paradigm.
The idea of using herbs from anywhere, not just within the ever-changing boarders of China is a long practiced concept by the Chinese, starting, probably, with trade from the Silk Road and other trade routes that brought goods from outside the “Middle Kingdom.” Some of the earliest integrations are myrrh, frankincense (both from the Middle East), and cinnamon (from Vietnam). But there are many many more including corn silk and American ginseng, both from North America.
Since my early days as an herbalist I have been fascinated by local herbs, ones that I could harvest myself or grow in my garden. This fascination led me to study with several people who had been integrating Western herbs into to Chinese medicine for many years. One of them, Michael Tierra, wrote the book Planetary Herbology, which was the starting point from my serious studies and became the springboard for my first book, Western Herbs According to Traditional Chinese Medicine: A Practitioners Guide.
Herbal traditions around the world have long integrated medicinals from areas other than their own native soil. Why have they done this? Well, the answer is probably quite complicated but I believe it is safe to say that when an herbal practitioner finds a new medicinal herb that works to treat something that they have struggled with, or if they find that the medicinal combines well with an herb or formula they like using they have no ethical problem integrating it into their own system. For these reason, and so many others, I find that using plants from outside the standard Chinese materia medica, not only easy (in the sense that there are no ethical conflicts), but also doing so has a positive impact on my ability to treat some types of illnesses that present in the clinic.
However, there are some other issues that are more modern issues that past herbalists did not need to concern themselves with. The most important, perhaps, is the issue of resource use in the transportation of plant materials around the world. This trade uses a lot of resources and with the shrinking of our availability to these resources and the cost of using these resources, both financial cost and cost to the environment, it is critical that we consider this as an important factor when choosing which plants we use in are practice. Availability may or may not prove to be a critical issue at some point in the future. For example, what we do in the event there was a problem with the export or import of herbs from other countries? Be they political or other this would pose a serious problem for those who depended on these medicinal plants and the patients they serve. Although the practice of using medicinal plants from your home soil may not completely solve this problem it would certainly resolve many of the issue pertaining to it.
So, with these issues in mind and my love of native plants I have worked my entire career to bring some plants from the Americas, Europe, and other places on the planet to the fray of Chinese medicine. The initial five formulas presented by Herban Pharmer are the beginning of what I hope to be a future of growth for the integration of plants into what is arguably the most comprehensive herbal medicinal system on the planet, Chinese medicine. In future blogs I will address specific information about the use of some of these formulas, introduce new formulas and answer any questions that are posed by the readership.
In Good Health,
AKA Pharmer Thomas
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