Medicinal plants in traditional Chinese medicine. V. L. Kochetkov

Introduction
What is medicine? Partly a science, necessarily a craft, but to a greater extent, undoubtedly, for the author, at least, an art. Let us turn to classical antiquity for a confirming quotation. The collection of Hippocrates has preserved unambiguous definitions for us: “Medicine is truly the noblest of all arts. But due to the ignorance of those who practice it, and those who judge them with frivolous condescension, it is now far below all arts. “There are some of the arts that are difficult for those who possess them, but beneficial for those who use them, and for ordinary people - a blessing that brings help, but for those who practice them - sadness. Of these arts, there is also that which the Hellenes call medicine.
The definitions are unambiguous and, in the opinion of the author, absolutely fair. One can, of course, object that Hippocrates lived a very long time and in general it is not known for certain whether such a person was in reality, or is this a collective image, which does not change the meaning of the sayings at all. It can be seen that in those ancient times there was no science itself in its current understanding. There was no coherent, organized system of knowledge, and each thinker relied on his personal experience, the word of his teacher or opponent, on literary sources, few and small in circulation, in comparison, of course, with today's day. Everything is so, but before people learned to think more than to remember. Today, in recent decades, education is organized according to the principle: “remember more”. And you should: "understand the main thing." And what is the main thing? And here it is as if it is unknown. That is why there are hundreds of medical specialties, which are united not by an idea, a principle, a law, a common understanding of the essence of being, but only a diploma of education, and sometimes some ethical postulates. Therefore, there is no unified system of knowledge, coherent, consistent, clear, consistent. We can say that different opinions are an absolute good, as an inalienable property of a democratic society. This is true, but only theoretically. Try to convince the sick and suffering standing, sitting and lying in front of a hundred in white coats.
Over the past two or three thousand years, man as a biological object, however, moral, too, has changed very little. The external, surrounding world has changed, but not fundamentally and not significantly. Therefore, the sayings and observations of thinkers of the past, including doctors, are relevant today. Actually, they have survived to this day because they are fair. Time, fortunately, erases nonsense. It also erases wise thoughts, but it is more ruthless to idiocy. Therefore, we have every reason to trust the experience of distant ancestors on the path of knowledge, which will never end, but which, in the main issues, has long been passed by mankind.
Traditional Chinese medicine, first of all, expects from a practicing doctor a slightly different worldview and understanding of the world. That is, at first it is necessary to understand a few philosophical postulates, literally just a little, which we will certainly do. Then you should consider the structure of functional systems, and get acquainted with the systems themselves. We will get acquainted, briefly, exclusively within the framework of the tasks set in this work. Of course, the user of medicine in the Chinese version should be aware of the symptoms that occur in a patient when one or another system is affected, and we will talk about this, if necessary. And finally, a doctor working in the field of medicine of an oriental nature is required to master traditional diagnostic methods, of which the main and most important is pulse diagnosis.
Pulse diagnostics, as a method, has been known to mankind since ancient times. “The pulse is the compass in a sea of ​​illness,” says the old adage. Pulse diagnostics, as a technique, has many options, modifications and directions. Mention of pulse diagnosis can be found in treatises on Chinese, Indian and Tibetan medicine. The famous physician Abu Ali Ibn Sina in his work "The Canon of Medicine" described the features of the pulse in various diseases. Yes, and Western doctors did not shy away from examining the patient's pulse. And until now, the basics of pulse diagnostics are taught in medical schools. Therefore, when the doctor takes the patient by the hand and feels, in the medical language, palpates the radial artery, everyone understands that the doctor “overlooks the work of the heart”. However, not only hearts, but the main thing - hearts, heart rate, rhythm, filling, tension, pulse wave speed, etc. Actually nothing in our vulgar materialistic and mechanistic world the doctor cannot see anything else. We have been taught that the heart is a muscular pump for pumping blood through the body. And the pulsation of the artery is a wave of blood flow, which is created by the heart as a pump, and characterizes the work of the heart as a pump. Everything is so if we understand the body from the point of view of one discipline - mechanics. But the world is changing! And now we can build our reasoning on the subject, taking into account the principles of modern information technology.
Everyone knows that the human body is a single and holistic system. The blood circulating in the vascular system "washes" almost all organs and systems of the body. Blood, therefore, carries information about the work of each section, each part of a single and integral system called the human body. The skill of the doctor, the researcher of the pulse, lies in the ability to "read", "extract" the necessary information from the blood stream. No mysticism, no supernatural abilities, knowledge and skill, nothing more. It is no more difficult than learning a foreign language, mastering a musical instrument or becoming a user of a modern computer. By the way, the analogy with a computer is the most accurate. Actually, in the future, we will consider the human body as some kind of computer, but let this approach not scare people who are not familiar with the computer. The author does not consider himself an expert in the field of computer technology, but using some principles and terminology to cover a given topic is both convenient and familiar, and therefore more understandable. Of course, one should not imagine a person as a kind of supercomputer, this is fundamentally wrong. We use only some images, schemes, principles, with the help of which it is easier to analyze the pathological processes occurring in the human body. But the most curious thing is that the postulates of traditional Chinese medicine cannot be explained without resorting to the terms of modern information technologies. Moreover, in order to comprehend the very main questions mentioned above, the answers to which so far, computer, have not yet received a worthy and satisfactory answer, it is possible only by synthesizing in our minds both traditional Eastern philosophy and modern information technology ideas about the essence of our existence.
Every day we repeatedly encounter the methods used in pulse diagnostics. Talking on the phone, watching TV, we receive information in pictures and sounds, without really thinking about how it, the information, gets to us. To our organs for its perception intended. And it is very easy to get there, with the help of various devices invented by people. Something happens somewhere, is fixed and transformed in a certain way, and then transmitted through satellites, repeaters or simply by wire. Then it is transformed again, but in the opposite direction, which allows us to hear and see what is happening somewhere. Approximately the same way information behaves in the study of the pulse. Each organ, system, tissue area “radiates” and “retransmits” its state through the blood. And blood, as you know, is a good conductor. The task of the doctor is only to read with the help of tactile abilities, encoded. Of course, you should know what and where you need to “look”, how to do it, and understand the essence and meaning of what is happening.
"So what exactly can you 'see' by examining a patient's pulse?" – the curious reader must certainly ask. “A great variety of very different things,” the author replies. And he often has to answer this seemingly simple question. The problem is that the “pulse language”, that is, the way information is encoded in the pulse diagnostic system, differs from the usual language accepted in communication. Our everyday language, words, facial expressions, gestures, etc., is a set of symbols for denoting certain images and concepts. Different peoples in different cultures have their own versions of the information transmission system, which in some way makes communication difficult. And any translation, interpretation necessarily involves an involuntary distortion of meaning, especially when it comes to complex, ambiguous or not very clear categories. For example, the word "table" is not difficult to translate if such a word exists in the language. What if the word doesn't exist? People do not use tables and do not bother themselves with unnecessary words, and try to explain to them what a table is. And, for example, the beloved Russian "nothing". "How are you? - Yes, nothing ... ”, - a familiar dialogue. What is "nothing"? Of course, you understood, but not every language has a similar our "nothing" term.
Computers are also trained to work with certain symbols, the totality of which is the language of the computer, that is, the way information is processed