What is Chinese Herbal Medicine?

Chinese herbal medicine is the precise and complex practice of combining roots, leaves, flowers, twigs, bark, shells, fruit, seeds, minerals, and more, into formulas or specifically designed recipes to be used as medicine.

This blending of herbs is the classical herbalist’s artform. The clinicians weave their understanding of each individual patient’s physiological pathways, and combine it with what is learned about the patient’s diet and lifestyle to create rich medicinal blends. These blends are not only designed to help ease specific discomforts or ailments, but to help the person adapt to seasonal changes and weather systems, to internal changes such as hormones and aging, and to the world around them- including stresses, pollution and food. Everything is considered.

Just like when you are planting a garden, or studying a forest, you will observe that all the components work together in synthesis. Certain seeds do better when planted near others. Ancient herbs are the same. If combined properly, each herb has the power to strengthen the effects of their neighbours- even at times decreasing toxicity while increasing efficacy.

The goal of treatment is to regulate, tonify, detoxify, and strengthen the body. These prescriptions are designed to treat patterns in the body that involve many organ systems and their associated tissues. The effects of the formulas are monitored and adjusted as the body changes under the influence of the formulas. One size does not fit all.

Herbal medicine can help to increase function in the body. This can directly improve physiological networks, by helping to remove what is not wanted or needed or to build up what is weak or deficient. This enhances and strengthens the will and mandate of each organ system to fulfill their physiological prophecy to keep you alive and well.

Your herbalist is able to assess patients using classical tools such as pulse diagnosis, and then treat illness by drawing on ancient recipes and formula composition that is precise and time tested.

Herbal medicine practice is safe and effective and for many conditions it is an essential part of the treatment. It may be used for anyone, including babies, children, teens, pregnant and breastfeeding women, and seniors. There are no rare and/or endangered animal parts used at Wild Roots in any formulas or prescriptions.

Rooted in history, the Classical Herbalist.  

Those who study Classical Chinese formulas and materia medica literature are those who are attracted to the ‘Arts of Nurturing Life’. They are not only collecting and developing the knowledge needed to treat disease but also cultivating health to promote longevity, if not immortality, by sharing knowledge about the effects of natural substances on the human body.

Bencao, the Chinese equivalent to our Latin term for the collected pharmacological knowledge “materia medica,” is literally translated as “[knowledge that is] rooted in herbs.” The earliest extant example of this literature is the “Divine Farmer’s Classic.” The Shen Non Ben Cao Jing from the Han dynasty (ranging in the years from 206 B.C.E. to 220 C.E.), is a direct manifestation of this herb-centred worldview. It discusses 365 natural substances, ranked in three hierarchical grades that correspond to the trinity of Heaven, Humanity and Earth. This founding manuscript, along with the Huang Di Nei Jing (a fundamental doctrinal text / philosophical framework for medical theory and the five elements) precedes the famous formula and treatment methods text called Shang Han Za Bing Lun written by Zhang Zhong Jing, also from the Han dynasty. It is this book that is the first and foremost herbal formula and treatment methodology manuscripts to influence all herbal schools of thought to come after it. 

Inspired by the desire to alleviate the suffering of humankind, all of these classical texts aim at the treatment of disease by means of formulas with medicinal efficacy. The ultimate goal is restoring the balance of yin and yang, the smooth flow of qi and blood, and the proper functioning of the organs systems in the body by supplementing deficiency and draining excess as required by each person. These herbal formulary resources are 2000-3000 years old and provide the foundation for a sound medical paradigm that continues to exist and to develop in full color and efficacy to this day.