[Revision to origin of northern Artemisia argyi in Compendium of Materia Medica (Bencao gangmu)].

The origin of northern Artemisia argyi recorded in Compendium of Materia Medica(Bencao gangmu) is Fudao(Chinese characters) in Tangyin county, While there is only Fudao(Chinese characters) instead of Fudao(Chinese characters). Whether indeed Fudao(Chinese characters) is Fudao(Chinese characters)? By reviewing the genuine evolution of A. argyi, doing textual research on Fudao(Chinese characters) and combing with field survey data of national census of Chinese Materia Medica resources, this paper concluded that the word Fudao(Chinese characters) firstly emerged in Figure Canon of Chinese Materia Medica(Bencao tujing) of Susong in Song dynasty and was applied in later generations, but the implication was not clear, then emerged both Tangyin and Fudao(Chinese characters) in Compendium of Materia Medica(Bencao gangmu). The place Fudao(Chinese characters) is one of the graves of Bianque, that existed from Shang and Zhou dynasty and never changed until now, the A. argyi of Tangyin was famous from the grave of Bianque in Fudao(Chinese characters), which could infer that Lishizhen considered Fudao (Chinese characters) was Fudao(Chinese characters) indeed, and the origin of northern A. argyi was Fudao(Chinese characters) in Tangyin county.

[Discussion on strengthening yin of chinese herbs with bitter-flavor clinical traditional Chinese pharmacology noun terminology standardization research].

Clinical traditional Chinese pharmacology is the subject that study of basic theory of traditional Chinese medicine, property of Chinese materia medica and clinical application. The study on the standardization research of the terminology of clinical traditional Chinese pharmacology is an important premise and foundation to standardization, modernization and internationalization, informationization construction of clinical traditional Chinese pharmacology and is also the important content of the subject construction. To provide some exploring ideas for clinical traditional Chinese pharmacology noun terminology standardization, this article elaborates the concept of strengthening Yin with bitter-flavor herbs in several aspects, such as connotation and the historical origin, the clinical application in the traditional, modern clinic application, and the modern basic research and so on.

[Behind the naming of herbal section as the decoction section in Treasured Mirror Of Eastern Medicine].

Heo Jun, who is the main compiler of Treasured Mirror of Eastern Medicine, states to applicate Shennong's Classic of Materia Medica, Rihuazi's annotations and Li Gao and Zhu Zhenheng's opinion to arrange materia medica on the introductory notes of Treasured Mirror of Eastern Medicine. While Shennong's Classic of Materia Medica and Rihuazi's annotations are both conventional texts dealing with materia medica, Li Gao and Zhu Zhenheng are just clinical practitioners. Not only Li Gao has no authorship on materia medica, but also Zhu Zhenheng's Supplement to the Elucidation of Materia Medica is assessed to have no distinctive achievements. Nevertheless, Heo Jun shows positive considerations for their achievements of materia medica. Specifically, on the Decoction Section in Treasured Mirror of Eastern Medicine, theories of lift, lower, float, sink and Channel Entry, both representative achievements of Yishui school-including Li Gao-are adopted as it is, and Zhu Zhenheng's expressions are frequently utilized for conclusive remarks of medicinal effect. Furthermore, applications of both clinicians can be found within nature & flavour which is one of the principal terms of understanding materia medica. While being based on the conventional materia medica text Classified Emergency Materia Medica, the Decoction section in Treasured Mirror of Eastern Medicine is not restrained by the intricate traditional compositions and shows a new aspect of depiction by adding clinical information. And I think it is a important meaning of the Decoction section, which is the herbal chapter of Treasured Mirror of Eastern Medicine.

Nine Steps to Discover New Medicines from Traditional Sources: The Example of Persian Medicine.

Objectives: Developing a new medicine is a costly and time-consuming process. This study presents a novel method to collate a new materia medica from previously documented traditional Persian medicine (TPM) references. A well-documented materia medica will facilitate a quick and easy process to find traditional medicine for specific symptoms or diseases. Materials and methods: A nine-step algorithm is proposed to collate a new materia medica by searching and matching descriptions and references stated in various traditional Persian literature: (1) finding the equivalent of traditional description of symptoms or diseases; (2) determining the keywords to search in the references of TPM, including The Canon of Medicine (Book by Avicenna); (3) determining the best references of TPM for the aim of the study; (4) weighing up the references (a) based on the prominence of the author's prominence (b) determining whether the references are the author's own clinical findings or has citation from other scholars been used, (c) the popularity of the book that the references feature in, among other later scholars of TPM, the geographical and historical span across which the book has been distributed; (5) searching the references using keywords of symptoms or diseases; (6) finding the synonyms of terminologies in the various materia medicas and categorizing the findings; (7) revision (of references found) to ensure that nothing is neglected; (8) scoring the findings based on the defined criteria; (9) prioritization: sorting the materia medica based on the total scores. Some important economic, cultural or historical factors cannot be included in the main process of prioritization during the initial searching of the TPM materia medica. Therefore, it is necessary to take these factors into account after discovering the medicine and before using in practice to ascertain that they are a good match of a specific treatment, disease or symptom. Conclusion: A process to compile a new materia medica has been proposed which will enable the quick and easy selection of herbal treatments for various signs and symptoms of illnesses.

Words matter: the prevalence of chiropractic-specific terminology on Australian chiropractors' websites.

BACKGROUND: Chiropractors use words and phrases in unique ways to express traditional, chiropractic-specific theories. This lexicon represents concepts that reinforce the separation of chiropractic from other health care professions. It may impact referrals both to and from chiropractors, lead to public confusion about health care issues, and reduce cross-disciplinary research. Therefore, it is important to understand how prevalent chiropractic-specific terms are in publicly available media. METHODS: Five chiropractic terms were selected: subluxation, adjustment, vital (-ism/-istic), wellness, and Innate (Intelligence). States and territories in Australia were proportionately sampled according to population of chiropractors using a Google search for chiropractors' private practice websites. The top results were recorded. Websites were word-searched on every publicly available page for the five terms. Context was checked to count only terms that were used to support a chiropractic-specific concepts. The number of occurrences of each term was recorded, tallied nationally and by state/territory. Descriptive statistics were applied to determine prevalence. RESULTS: Three hundred sixty-nine websites were sampled, based on an estimate of 5500 chiropractors practising in Australia. Nationally, 85% of chiropractors used one or more terms. The term adjust (-ing/-ment) occurred most frequently, being found on 283 websites (77%) with a total of 2249 occurrences. Wellness was found on 199 websites (54%) with 872 occurrences; subluxation was found on 104 websites (28%), 489 occurrences; vital (-ism/-istic) on 71 websites (19%) with 158 occurrences; and Innate was least used, being found on 39 websites (11%) with 137 occurrences. CONCLUSION: A majority of the Australian chiropractors sampled used one or more chiropractic-specific terms on their websites. Future research should explore the effects of chiropractic language on the public, policy-makers, and other health care professionals.

Vitalism in contemporary chiropractic: a help or a hinderance?

BACKGROUND: Chiropractic emerged in 1895 and was promoted as a viable health care substitute in direct competition with the medical profession. This was an era when there was a belief that one cause and one cure for all disease would be discovered. The chiropractic version was a theory that most diseases were caused by subluxated (slightly displaced) vertebrae interfering with "nerve vibrations" (a supernatural, vital force) and could be cured by adjusting (repositioning) vertebrae, thereby removing the interference with the body's inherent capacity to heal. DD Palmer, the originator of chiropractic, established chiropractic based on vitalistic principles. Anecdotally, the authors have observed that many chiropractors who overtly claim to be "vitalists" cannot define the term. Therefore, we sought the origins of vitalism and to examine its effects on chiropractic today. DISCUSSION: Vitalism arose out of human curiosity around the biggest questions: Where do we come from? What is life? For some, life was derived from an unknown and unknowable vital force. For others, a vital force was a placeholder, a piece of knowledge not yet grasped but attainable. Developments in science have demonstrated there is no longer a need to invoke vitalistic entities as either explanations or hypotheses for biological phenomena. Nevertheless, vitalism remains within chiropractic. In this examination of vitalism within chiropractic we explore the history of vitalism, vitalism within chiropractic and whether a vitalistic ideology is compatible with the legal and ethical requirements for registered health care professionals such as chiropractors. CONCLUSION: Vitalism has had many meanings throughout the centuries of recorded history. Though only vaguely defined by chiropractors, vitalism, as a representation of supernatural force and therefore an untestable hypothesis, sits at the heart of the divisions within chiropractic and acts as an impediment to chiropractic legitimacy, cultural authority and integration into mainstream health care.

The concept of miasm--evolution and present day perspective.

This paper reviews the circumstances in which the concept of miasm evolved and how subsequent developments in medicine have improved our understanding of the cause of diseases. It concludes with an emphasis on the need to further refine the homeopathic concept of disease.

[Position Statement From The Spanish Association Of Paediatrics Medicines Committee Concerning The Use Of Alternative Medicine And Pseudo-Science In Children]. / Posicionamiento del Comité de Medicamentos de la Asociación Española de Pediatría en relación con el uso de medicinas alternativas y seudociencias en niños.

Currently, there are some therapies that are being practiced without adjusting to the available scientific evidence. The terminology is confusing, encompassing terms such as "alternative medicine", "natural medicine", "complementary medicine", "pseudoscience" or "pseudo-therapies". The Medicines Committee of the Spanish Association of Paediatrics considers that no health professional should recommend treatments not supported by scientific evidence. Also, diagnostic and therapeutic actions should be always based on protocols and clinical practice guidelines. Health authorities and judicial system should regulate and regularize the use of alternative medicines in children, warning parents and prescribers of possible sanctions in those cases in which the clinical evolution is not satisfactory, as well responsibilities are required for the practice of traditional medicine, for health professionals who act without complying with the "lex artis ad hoc", and for the parents who do not fulfill their duties of custody and protection. In addition, it considers that, as already has happened, Professional Associations should also sanction, or at least reprobate or correct, those health professionals who, under a scientific recognition obtained by a university degree, promote the use of therapies far from the scientific method and current evidence, especially in those cases in which it is recommended to replace conventional treatment with pseudo-therapy, and in any case if said substitution leads to a clinical worsening that could have been avoided.

Homeopathy and systematics: a systematic analysis of the therapeutic effects of the plant species used in homeopathy.

The therapeutic effects of the plant species used in homeopathy have never been subjected to systematic analysis. A survey of the various Materiae Medicae shows that over 800 plant species are the source of medicines in homeopathy. As these medicines are considered related to one another with respect to their therapeutic effects for treating similar symptoms, the aim is to classify and map them using the concept of homology. This involves placing the discipline of homeopathy into a comparative framework using these plant medicines as taxa, therapeutic effects as characters, and contemporary cladistic techniques to analyse these relationships. The results are compared using cladograms based on different data sets used in biology (e.g. morphological characters and DNA sequences) to test whether similar cladistic patterns exist among these medicines. By classifying the therapeutic actions, genuine homologies can be distinguished from homoplasies. As this is a comparative study it has been necessary first to update the existing nomenclature of the plant species in the homeopathic literature in line with the current International Code of Botanical Nomenclature.

[Research and analysis of data source--analysis of the items of medical plants in Xiandai Bencao Gangmu].

Scientific data is the source of innovation in knowledge. In order to change the situation that there is few information in plenty of data and to obtain useful knowledge which has high information content, it is necessary to clean data and ensure data's accuracy and without noise off when database is established initially. High-quality data comes from high-quality data source. But incomplete and incorrect and irregular data exist widely in the data source of Chinese materia medica. The phenomenon of synonyms and homonym is quite serious, and there is no unified description for the name and origin of Chinese materia medica among different data sources. So data processing including data analysis and research is very important in the establishment of Chinese materia medica database. In order to get the most accurate and standard data, this paper analyzed the items of Medical Plants in Xiandai Bencao Gangmu, including classification analysis of medical plants: distribution analysis of different classes and analysis of medical part; analysis of synonyms and homonym; analysis of incorrect data and analysis of advantage and disadvantage of data sources.

[Textural research on Zibei Xiqi in Bencao Gangmu Shiyi (a supplement to compendium of materia medica)].

OBJECTIVE: To research the origin of Zibei Xiqi which included in Volume 3 of < Bencao Gangmu Shiyi > (A supplement to the compendium of materia medica). METHOD: The origin of Zibei Xiqi was confirmed with textural, botanical characteristics research and drug name, therapeutic effects and so on. RESULT: The origin of Zibei Xiqi was confirmed. CONCLUSION: The Zibei Xiqi which is recorded in < Bencao Gangmu Shiyi > should be the immature herbs of Shuang Hudie [Tripterospermum chinense, Gentianaceae], and suggest to correct the original records of the drug name.

[Evolution of the origin of strain of Shancigu (Rhizoma Pleionis)].

Shancigu (Rhizome Pleionis) was first recorded in the Ben cao shiyi (Supplements to Chinese Materia Medica). The source of the strain of this medicinal was unclear because of its too simple description in the medical books in the Tang and Song dynasties. Its original plant could be Cremastra appendiculata (D.Don) Makino, Tulipa edulis (Miq.) Baker and so on. The original plant of Shanciguwas Tulipaedulis since the Ming dynasty to the Republican period. The name of "Guangcigu" began to appear in the Republican period because of the changes of its processing method. The original plants evolved into Cremastra appendiculata, Pleione bulbocodioides (Franch.) Rolfe and Pleione yunnanensis Rolfe, with Tulipa edulisas the original plant of Guangcigu (Bulbus of Tulipasedulis). It is found that only the Tulipaedulis is the unequivocal origin with the longest medicinal history through sorting out of the original plants of Shancigu. Hence, it is suggested that Tulipa edulis should be recovered as the original strain of Shancigu.

Impure placebo is a useless concept.

Placebos are allegedly used widely in general practice. Surveys reporting high level usage, however, have combined two categories, 'pure' and 'impure' placebos. The wide use of placebos is explained by the high level usage of impure placebos. In contrast, the prevalence of the use of pure placebos has been low. Traditional pure placebos are clinically ineffective treatments, whereas impure placebos form an ambiguous group of diverse treatments that are not always ineffective. In this paper, we focus on the impure placebo concept and demonstrate problems related to it. We also show that the common examples of impure placebos are not meaningful from the point of view of clinical practice. We conclude that the impure placebo is a scientifically misleading concept and should not be used in scientific or medical literature. The issues behind the concept, however, deserve serious attention in future research.

[On the concept of bencao].

Being the typical traditional Chinese pharmacy closely related with medicine, Bencao is a knowledge of extensive contents including what is presently called Chinese materia medica. It also has a systematic theory and valuable experience of practice. Today Bencao is still of practical significance for medical and health work in our country.

[Study on the origin of Rana temporaria for quality Oviduetus Ranae].

OBJECTIVE: To determine the origin of Rana temporaria for quality Oviduetus Ranae in the light of historical documents and modern researches on the classification of Rana temporaria chensinensis. METHOD: Works of Chinese meteria medica of all ages, related historical documents and reports from home and abroad on researches of R. temporaria chensinensis were consulted, sorted out, analyzed and summarized. RESULT: The original Shange recorded in the works of Chinese meteria medica is R. temporaria chensinensis, which is the independent species, not one of species of European forest frogs. R. temporaria chensinensis is divided into 4 subspecies: R. temporaria chensinensis, Lanzhou, Kangding, and Changbaishan. The origin of R. temporaria is Changbaishan subspecies of R. temporaria chensinensis. CONCLUSION: Changbaishan subspecies of R. temporaria chensinensis is determined as the origin for quality Oviduetus Ranae.

From the cell of Schwann to schwannoma--a century's fruition.

The word "schwannoma" is pervasive throughout the neurosurgical community. However, little is known about the origin of the cell of "Schwann cell," the manifestation of the tumor's nomenclature, or the prominent physicians who studied its etiopathogenesis. Schwann was a founding father of cellular theory and one of the greatest scientists of the 19th century. He not only proposed cell theory but also discovered the "secondary" nerve cell and hypothesized its possible function in myelination. It took a century to confirm Schwann's hypothesis. In 1954, Geren, aided by the electron microscope, demonstrated that the cell of Schwann is responsible for nerve myelination. Concurrently, researchers worked to understand the etiology and pathogenesis of peripheral nerve neoplasms. Several attempts were made; Older, Virchow, and von Recklinghausen were the first pioneers who worked on the classification of these neoplasms. However, Masson first used the word "schwannoma" to describe peripheral nerve neoplasms other than neuromas. His French colleague Nageotte used the term "peripheral-glioma" to denote these tumors. These schwannomas were considered to have a malignant course. In 1932, Penfield attempted to classify peripheral nerve neoplasms into 3 categories: peripheral fibroblastoma, peripheral glioma, and neurofibroma of von Recklinghausen. He classified "Verocay's neurinoma," "Masson's schwannoma," and "cerebellopontine angle" tumors as perineural fibroblastoma. He believed that these tumors have a non-nerve cell, non-Schwann cell origin. He classified the tumors arising from the Schwann cell sheath as peripheral gliomas and articulated, "If any tumors are to be called schwannomas, these should be." The neurofibroma of von Recklinghausen was recognized as a separate entity, as described by von Recklinghausen himself. Murray and Stout proposed that schwannomas are essentially benign in nature clarifying the abstruseness of the benign or malignant nature of schwannoma.

[Research on the changes of name of Wuzhuyu (Medicinal Evodia Fruit)].

The name of Wuzhuyu (Medicinal Evodia Fruit) comes from the place of "Wu", and the shape of its fruit, which is like a 'Zhuyu'. In addition, it is also called "Yi, Sha, Jiao, Dang, Yuejiao and Qiu" for different reasons; for example, "Yi" because of its processing and sacrificial function; and "Sha" because of the bug-killing function of its root and cortex. In Xin Xiu Ben Cao (Newly Revised Materia Medica) of the Tang Dynasty, its names were unified as Wuzhuyu. Because it can be eaten, it was also called "Shizhuyu". In the Song Dynasty, with the discontinued vogue of eating Zhuyu, people had difference attitudes to the "Wuzhuyu" and "Shizhuyu". Nowadays, "Wuzhuyu" is the established name of these kinds of materia medica.