Comparison and attempt to understand the difference between the use of
medicinal herbs in academic, traditional and folk medicine of the peoples of the West and the East. Difference and features in the philosophy of traditional medicine of the East of the impact of medicinal herbs on the human body.
“Decoctions (teas) are the smile of medicinal plants, pills are the look of plants, and infusions are the soul of plants”
Axiom of Tibetan healers
Traditional medicine is Chinese, Indian, Egyptian, Tibetan.
Traditional medicine is a specific science that is fundamentally different from Western medicine and has a huge number of written sources. For example, Chinese medicine, which is already 5,000 years old, has more than 10,000 written sources.
Folk medicine is oral tradition that is passed down from generation to generation. Representatives of this medicine are healers, healers.
In academic medicine, medicinal plants are divided according to botanical characteristics, the chemical composition and pharmacological effect on the human body and animals are officially taken into account. The influence of separately isolated alkaloids, glucosides and other chemicals obtained from plant materials on the body is being studied. Of the tens of thousands of medicinal plants, only about two thousand species have been studied.
Sometimes, due to the poor knowledge of many plants, it is difficult to identify their main pharmacological properties. Some medicinal plants, tested in folk medicine, are successfully used for many diseases. It is assumed that even if they do not give the proper therapeutic effect, they still have a beneficial effect on the human body and on the course of the disease.
According to Academic Medicine, it is believed that the use of medicinal plants in folk ways cannot replace chemical and other medicinal preparations and conventional medical treatment. However, it is recognized that medicinal plants and their collections are natural medicines and have the property of a powerful multilateral effect on the human body. In Eastern medicine, medicinal herbs have long been used in folk and traditional medicine by all peoples of the world. The main task of herbal medicine in Tibetan and Chinese medicine is to restore the overall balance of the body, maintain health and prevent diseases.
Even today, ancient recipes and methods of treatment are sincerely admired by scientists and doctors around the world, sometimes they surpass many modern pharmacological preparations and therapeutic procedures in their effectiveness. The uniqueness of healing herbal infusions is in their special method of preparation.
Chinese medicine, which emerged from the philosophy of Taoism, developed by its perception of the special relationship of the human body with nature, without interfering with Western medicine. Over the past millennia, generations of Chinese doctors have created an original and independent system that describes all the pathological and physiological processes occurring in the body. According to her, instead of anatomical, internal organs, functional systems are meant. Each of the functional systems corresponds to one of the five primary elements, which are interconnected through the channels through which the vital energy flows – Qi.
With the development of the disease, the balance of the two opposite principles of Yin and Yang is disturbed, which leads to an imbalance in the body. In the human body there is a feminine principle – Yin and a masculine principle – Yang. These forces must be in harmony. Yin is peace, water, night, cold, darkness, woman. Yang is an energetic, hot beginning (fire), heat, light, man. This explains the integrity of the human body and its functions. YIN-YANG are two poles of a single whole, where the cycles of transformation of “one” into “another” unfold.
Everything that surrounds us has a polar nature: time is divided into day and night, the year into summer and winter, gender – into male and female, temperature – into heat and cold, direction – up and down, space – into internal and external and etc. The opposite principles of Yin and Yang are never at rest, they are constantly in motion, complement and change each other: if Yang recedes, Yin increases, and if Yin recedes, Yang increases, i.e. there is a constant process of self-regulation of body systems. Such a system leads to energy rhythm. Rhythm is health. Rhythmic pulse, rhythmic breathing, rhythmic energy channels. Human health is Yin-Yang balance, and disease is Yin-Yang disharmony.