The Herbal Playbook

Having done my full education here in China, I have tried with varying degrees of success to live up to expectations set for domestic students. While my theoretical understanding of the medicine and diagnostic skills are quite strong in relation to my peers, most Chinese students kick my butt when it comes to rote memorization of prescriptions and acupuncture points.

For example, those serious about herbal medical work are expected to memorize all 113 prescriptions from the ShangHanLun and their single-herb compositions. Certainly the emphasis in reading the text is on the prescriptions, with less attention given to extracting implied physiology/pathology and individual herbal properties through comparison of individual pattern diagnoses, a deductive reading process I have learned from Dr. LiXin and others (examples to follow).

As my focus shifts to clinical work though, I can see the importance of having such a readily available knowledge base to work from. I've heard that memorization is a learned skill that can be mastered with the help of a bit of strategy. In any case, it is an area I am going to try and put some work into over the next couple months.

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