Acupuncture for Post-Op Pain Relief!

Meet the Herbs: Yu Mi Xu

Chinese: 玉米须
Pin Yin: Yu Mi Xu
Pharmaceutical: Maydis Stigma
English: Cornsilk

According to Bensky's Materia Medica, Yu Mi Xu promotes urination, reduces edema, and unblocks painful urination. It also clears damp heat from the Liver and Gallbladder in connection with hepatitis, cholecystitis, or gallstones.

The Materia Medica of South Yunnan notes:

Eases the Intestines, directs qi downward, treats clumps in women's breasts, blocked lactation with redness, swelling, and pain, chills, and fever, headache, and heaviness in the body.

Records of Picking Herbs in Lingnan notes:

Boiled in soup with pork, it treats diabetes. It also treats dribbling urination with gravel and stones leading to bitter, unbearable pain: boil into a soup and drink frequently.

What we've done in the picture above is simply put raw cornsilk, straight off a fresh ear of corn, into a jug and added filtered drinking water. Leave it overnight, and you've got yourself a cool, refreshing drink for the summertime that will not only drain dampness and clear heat, but also tastes good.

So if you're planning on grilling up some corn-on-the-cob this Labor Day weekend, save the cornsilk and make yourself a jug of cornsilk tea!

The Origin of This Picture is Unknown

Take a look at the first two characters of the third line. 阴 is romanized as "yin", as in yin and yang. Yin and Yang are a set of opposites that underlie all creation. In general, yin relates to the moon and things that are cold, dark, contracting, downward moving and female. In general, yang relates to the sun and things that are warm, bright, expansive, upward moving and male.

Everything (absolutely everything) in the universe has yin and yang within it. Although yin generally relates to the "female principle" and yang generally relates to the "male principle", it is an elementary mistake to equate everything female with yin and male with yang (see Charlotte Furth, "Blood, Body and Gender: Medical Images of the Female Condition in China, 1600-1850", 1986. Chinese Science 7: 43-66 and "Concepts of Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Infancy in Ch'ing Dynasty China", 1987, Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 46, No. 1 for an example of this mistaken thinking).

The next character is 道, which is romanized as "dao". This is the Dao or (Tao) or Daoism, and can mean the Way, a road, a path. If your mind works a certain way, your next question is, path to where? Way of what? In regular Chinese grammar, 道 is usually preceded by another character - 武道 meaning the Way of martial arts or war, 茶道 meaning the Way of tea. Taken by itself, 道 becomes a subject for philosophical inquiry, meditation, contemplation.

In the case of our unfortunately translated picture above, the 阴道 is the pathway of yin - the vagina. The vagina can be thought of as a pathway to the ultimate physical expression of yin in the world of humans - the interior world of a woman. It should therefore be treated with respect and care by those fortunate enough to have one and by everyone who is fortunate enough to come in contact with one.

Picture of the Day

Chinese Medicine: Is It Totally Fake???

You might think that China is the place where Chinese medicine is most popular. That may be true in terms of absolute numbers, but the trend is opposite - so-called "alternative" treatments such as Chinese medicine are becoming more and more popular in the United States, while interest is rapidly declining in China.

You can read the full article here, but I'm going to repost in full (with links added) a good summary article on the subject from an English-language Chinese newspaper.

As traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) gains credibility in the West, the practice of this nearly 5,000-year-old medical system has been faced with major challenges in the country of its origin. In 2006, Zhang Gongyao, a professor of philosophy at Zhongnan University, collected 10,000 signatures calling for "the abolition of traditional Chinese medicine" on the grounds that it was not scientifically based.

The move spurred a great deal of debate throughout China. While most supporters and practitioners of TCM dismissed Zhang's petition as "absurd", Fang Zhouzi, an academic known for his opposition to "pseudoscience", supported Zhang. Fang called TCM medical theory outdated, and said that China should focus on controlling and inspecting TCM herbs.

The debate was put to rest in October 2006, when China's Ministry of Health came out strongly against the petition to abolish TCM, saying it showed "ignorance of China's history".

Nevertheless, Chinese TCM doctors and experts agree that there have been major challenges to the development of the Chinese traditional medical system in recent years. Only one-fifth of patients now turn to TCM. One-third of patients use a combination of Western medicine and TCM treatments.

China has just 270,000 TCM doctors today, compared to 800,000 in the early 20th century, and 500,000 in 1949 at the founding of New China. Of the 85,705 medical institutions in China, only 3,009 were listed as TCM institutes in 2006, a decrease of nearly 800 from 2002.

Meanwhile, more and more TCM hospitals use Western medical tools and medicines for diagnosis and treatment, and rely less on TCM practices, such as pulse-taking and treatment with herbal medicines.

A major cause of the decline is the present mode of educating TCM doctors. In the past, TCM practitioners learned through a long apprenticeship. In the past 30 years, however, TCM has adopted a system similar to Western medicine for training doctors: four years of medical school, followed by hospital internships.

Pessimists say that TCM practices will be lost after the older generation of traditionally trained doctors die off. But in fact, many young practitioners who finished school in the 1980s have recognized the challenges ahead, and have advocated practicing "pure TCM".

According to a recent Internet survey by sina.com, 74.37 percent of 55,690 Internet users "greatly support TCM" and 81.3 percent believe "TCM has its own advantages". But only 42.48 percent said they would visit a TCM doctor, leaving 57.52 percent who said they would prefer a Western medical doctor.

(China Daily 08/27/2008 page 19)

p.s. Did you know you don't have to go to school to become an acupuncturist in the U.S.? Both California's Acupuncture Board and the NCCAOM have apprenticeship programs that allow you to sit for the national and California exams. Unfortunately, according the 2008 Candidate Handbook & Application Form, the apprenticeship route for national certification will be abolished in 2010.

Dao of the Day

Something looked for but not seen,
Or listened for, not heard
Or reached for, not found:
Call one "dim," one "faint," one "slight,"
Not for summons nor for challenge.
Combined these three make one -
The One, the foremost number,
When daylit sky and dark of night
Have yet to be.
Through this One all living forms coil forth
Helter-skelter - how else to name it? -
Only to go round home again
To their unbodied state:
Form before form,
Guises of the unbodied,
Or gleams in a dim void.
Who can engage them?
Who find the foremost?
Who can pursue them?
Who find the last?
Hold fast to the Way of ancient days
To guide us through our present world;
To know how things began of old
Is to be grounded in the Way

From Dao De Jing: The Book of the Way, translation and commentary by Moss Roberts.

Previously:

• Dao of the Day from August 3
  
• Dao of the Day from July 23rd

Pineapple Express

This movie's hilarious. Just go see it. You'll laugh yourself silly.

There's been a lot of research into the value of laughter. There's even a form of laughing yoga which relieves stress, stimulates the cardiovascular system, and improves digestion. It can also help your sleep!

I just saw Pineapple Express and I feel like I had a workout. My sides ache. But more than that, I feel like I had an emotional workout - all positive emotions! You know how sometimes after a big yelling and screaming match, you feel all exhausted, but kind of drained in a good way, like all the angry is gone? It's like that, except with all positive emotions! I feel rejuvenated.