thus began an overwhelming desire on my part to learn more about Chinese herbs, a subject so little understood by the Western world. Was the interest primarily botanical or medical? At that time I could not answer this question, but whatever inherent drive launched me on what was to become a very extensive study indeed, I immediately took the first logical and necessary step, namely the study of the Chinese language.
After several years of linguistic preparation, I undertook the translation of Chinese pharmaceutical works. Until recently, analyses in the English language of Chinese materia medica have been the result of translations from the ancient and traditional native works. Because of the vagueness of expressions and terms used by the Chinese authors, and their inclination to the marvellous, these existing translations left much to be desired, from the scientific viewpoint. My goal was the writing of something more concrete.
True, most of traditional Chinese medicine is based solely on superstition and fancy. The Chinese are much addicted to the doctrine of signatures, which is based on the belief that an external mark or character on a plant indicates its suitableness to cure particular diseases. Thus they employ a decoction of the thorns of Gleditschia or Zizyphus to accelerate the bursting of abscesses. The yellow bark of Berberis is used for jaundice. Emmenagogue properties are ascribed to the red root of Rubia cordifolia. And the well-known ginseng, whose branching root resembles the human figure, appears to be a panacea for nearly all ills.
On the other hand, Western medical science continues to discover important constituents in botanicals employed in the so-called "folk" medicines of various countries. As far as the folk medicine of China is concerned, the difficult and ambiguous language barrier has kept this area from being extensively studied. Perhaps the Japanese have made the greatest headway in this respect.
I needed to find a way to relate the many age-old plant remedies of China to today's scientific procedures, in the hope that I might open the door to further study by those more specifically qualified in the field of pharmacology. I was finally fortunate enough to locate several recent works in Chinese on the subject, recent enough to include a sufficient content of modern chemical analysis and botanical identification, together with traditional therapeutic usage as related to Occidental medical terminology. My work had just begun.
The preparation of this book, which has occupied my interest for the past twenty years, has taken me by necessity through the studies of not only the Chinese language, but also of Japanese and French, as well as the subjects of botany, chemistry, and medical science. It has been an exhausting labor of love, and vet I feel the surface has been merely scratched. The greatest feeling of accomplishment shall come only when I determine that my efforts, purely those of a layman in all the subjects above mentioned, have been of actual assistance to more legitimate research.
JOHN D. KEYS
ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THIS BOOK
| m.p. | melting point |
| b.p. | boiling point |
| mm. | millimeter |
| cm. | centimeter |
| gm. | gram |
| ml. | milliliter |
| dm. | decimeter |
| c.c. | cubic centimeters |
| q.s. | quantum sufficit (L., as much as suffices) |
| ad lib. | dad libitum (L., without restraint or limit) |
| gen. | genus, genera |
| sp. | species |
| fam. | family |
| b.i.d. | bis in die (L., twice a day) |
| t.i.d. | ter in die (L., thrice a day) |
| q.i.d. | quater in die (L., four times a day) |
All temperatures given are in degrees centigrade.
EXEGESIS
UPON COMPLETION of the individual monographs which comprise this book, the author was faced with the decision on the manner in which they should be organized. Three alternatives presented themselves, namely (1) alphabetization by the romanized Chinese name; (2) over-all alphabetization by generic plant name; and (3) classification by traditional botanic procedure of division, class, subclass, order, and family, the genera within each family being arranged alphabetically. The latter arrangement was chosen as the most logical, for it had become evident through all my researches and wanderings that this work was indeed of botanical foundation.
At this point I should like to explain to the reader the basic form used in the treatment of each botanical:
1. The Latin botanical name (and family)
2. The common English name, if any
3. A complete botanical description (index numbers throughout the text refer to bibliographical entries on p. 361)
4. The natural habitat
5. Botanical synonyms, if any
6. The pharmaceutical description of the drug, including physical description, taste, odor, and toxicity
7. Phytochemical analysis
8. Pharmacodynamic investigations, together with any related use of the same drug in other pharmacopeias, as well as any references to related plants
9. Chinese therapeutic usage of the drug
10. Dosage given by the Chinese herbals (These figures have to be accepted as extremely generalized, for the particular drug may or may not be taken in conjunction with other medicament. Basically, the dosages given are intended to represent the daily dosage to be made into a single decoction or tea, divided into two or three drafts. On the other hand, many medications are meant to be given in powder or pill form, in which case these dosage figures would not at all coincide. A subject of constant ambiguity to the author, these figures are given merely as hypothetical reference.)
11. Incompatible drugs, if any
12. Lastly, related plants of the same genera used for the same purpose, if any
Note: Each plant description is accompanied by a small illustration, except for a few plants for which illustrations were not available. The larger illustrations give a closer or more detailed view, but where a large picture of a certain plant was not available a related plant of the same genus used for the same purpose is shown. The Chinese characters given with the illustrations are read from right to left.
EQUISETINAE
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EQUISETUM HYEMALE L. (Equisetaceae) |
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A perennial herb of the horsetail family, known
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