Jade Remedies Volume 2

Jade Remedies: A Chinese Herbal Reference for the West by Peter Holmes is an important book in the development of Chinese medicine and a great clinical reference. The genius of this two-volume materia medica is its application of terminology that bridges the syndromes of Chinese medicine with the terms of Western pharmacology so that each informs the other. The actions, indications and chemical constituents of the herbs in Western terms elucidate the broad Chinese symptom pictures, and the symptom groupings of Chinese medicine syndromes help make the precise information of Western pharmacology more clinically useful.

These volumes are about drawing together the ancient and the modern and the East and the West. To do this, Holmes makes links between herb actions and treatment strategies, between pharmacology and therapeutics and between plant chemistry and pharmacology. The result is that the author is able to make a large amount of scientific information available in relation to traditional uses without reducing the Chinese syndromes to facile and clinically useless actions.

Where applicable, Holmes also relates the Chinese herbs to similar Western counterparts. He's had his eye on translating herbs from one tradition to another for quite some time. This is his second major cross-cultural pharmacopoeia reference work. The first was The Energetics of Western Herbs: An Herbal Reference Integrating Western and Oriental Medicine Traditions. This two-volume opus presents the pharmacopoeias of Western herbal traditions with the symptom pictures of Chinese medicine. In essence, Jade Remedies is a continuation of The Energetics of Western Herbs.

For the Western practitioner unfamiliar with the language of Chinese medicine, Jade Remedies is organized according to Western anatomical systems. By doing this, Holmes is able to skirt the problems of explaining concepts unique to Chinese medicine. For example, the function of the Chinese concept of Liver shares little similarity with the Western liver and essentially describes nervous system pathology. Therefore, an herb like Bupleurum Chai Hu that spreads Liver qi is placed in the "Nervous Sedative" class, more appropriate to its primary Western action.

The Chinese symptom picture of Bupleurum Chai Hu is referred to as:
"Qi constraint with nerve excess" - feeling stressed, unrest, chest pain and tightness, menstrual pain, headache, painful digestion with bloating, allergies.

Translated into Western terms Bupleurum Chai Hu is:
analgesic, anti-inflammatory, spasmolytic

The Western indications include:
nervous hyperfunctioning with restlessness and pain, headache, dysmenorrhea, intercostal neuralgia, myalgia, dyspepsia, peptic ulcer, biliary and intestinal colic, IBS, spasmodic coughing and deafness

Holmes continues in his thorough description. This is one of nine Western indications for this herb. Its other actions are: hypotensive; antipyretic; anti-infective, antiviral, anti-bacterial, interferon inducent; immune regulator, anti-allergic; liver protective; radiation protective; pituitary-adremocortical stimulant; astringent, antiprolapse. Each indication itself contains an explanation. At the same time, the text also includes the traditional Chinese syndromes, in the case of this remedy: Gallbladder fire and Shao Yang heat. A Notes section following each herb highlights the common use and explains mode of action and modern applications. This section makes the book a must read for the student who needs to find "handles" to hold the herbs in his/her mind.

One's image of an herb's function changes when its class is reorganized. The new organization provides therapeutic knowledge that localizes the herbs' functions. We begin to think of them in terms of body system functions rather than purely energetic functions. For example, Cinnamon Rou Gui is classed in the "Cardiac Stimulants" instead of the more traditional "Interior Warming."

Jade Remedies' listing of Chinese syndromes is even more complete than Bensky and Gamble. The additional information makes the text expansive and thought provoking. Holmes assigns extra vessel channel affinities where appropriate (for example Bupleurum Chai Hu has affinity to the Yang Wei channel) and assigns qualities such as moistening and drying that go far beyond the Bensky presentation.

This materia medica is an important contribution to herbal medicine. It pulls Chinese medicine out of its timeless mindset as an ancient, imperially sanctioned system of classical medicine to a viable system of health care for the West. Allopathy needs the therapeutic potentials of Chinese medicine to more effectively treat chronic and degene-rative diseases. Chinese medicine needs a language for the West that scientifically validates it. This materia medica is most probably the first that preserves the soul of three-thousand plus years of vitalistic art/science in a way the West can use. It is for this feat that Jade Remedies becomes an indispensable reference source and will earn this book and its author a place in history.