Processing of Herbs
Author: Dr. Lee
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Time: 2010/11/20 16:57:22
Before the Eastern Han Dynasty, herbs were taken directly by the patients to cure disease. In the late Eastern Han Dynasty, doctors began to decoct the ingredients of a prescription for patients to cure. The form of decoction came into existence.
Before being used clinically, herbs must be processed with certain techniques. The commonly used techniques include baking, roasting, washing, soaking, purifying,steaming and stewing. Sometimes wine, honey, vinegar and salt are also used to process herbs.
The important thing is that all the methods used to process herbs play an important role in deciding the curative effect of the herbs. For example, Huang Di Nei Jing(Yellow Emperor's Canon of Medicine) mentioned a prescription used to treat insomnia due to stagnation of Channels and disorder of yin and yang. The ingredients in this prescription should be decocted in water that has run for one thousand miles with reed (hollow) fire for the purpose of dredging Channels. The purposes of processing herbs are to make it easy to store and use, to remove toxic elements, to strengthen curative effect, to change the nature of herbs and to remove impurity.
The current extant monograph on herb processing is Lei Gong Pao Zhi Lun (Lei Gong's Discussion on Processing Herbs). Ben Cao Jing Ji Zhu (Explanation of Canon of Materia Medica) compiled by Tao Hongjing (c. 452-536) also discussed this aspect in the introduction part. Actually almost all books on materia medica would devote part of their contents to herb processing.
The methods for processing herbs can be used flexibly. Since 1949, official criterias were gradually decided by provinces for standard and scientific processing of herbs. These criterias are recognized in the Chinese Pharmacopeia.
Historically, the development of studies on materialmedica was based on empirical knowledge accumulated in medical practice. In such studies, analogy played an important role in analyzing the nature and curative effect of herbs. Through trials and errors, the studies of material medica gradually accomplished the establishment of the theory and methodology of Chinese pharmacy.
