What is Chinese (Oriental) Herbal Medicine?
While acupuncture is much more common in the United States, Chinese (Oriental is the more correct term as the herbs are grown in many different locations) herbal medicine is the standard traditional treatment in many parts of the world including China. When people go to a traditional medicine clinic in China, often they go to a doctor who diagnoses their problem and prescribes an herbal formula for them. The diagnosis is made according to differential diagnosis. That means that a patient is treated according to how they express an illness rather than a standard set of protocols associated with a particular disease. Information about the patient is gathered through questioning and palpating the pulse and abdomen. All of the complaints and symptoms are taken into consideration when forming a diagnosis even though they may seem unrelated to the patient. Oriental medicine honors the patient not the disease. This is a very complex, individualized system of medicine. The materia medica consi
