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Traditional Chinese Medicine - and the threat of animal species
contents
- What is TCM??
- Manual therapies include massage (Tuina Anmo)
- Traditional medicine and threatened animals
- Tiger medicine
- Bears
- rhinos
- The dying of the turtles
- What to do?
What is TCM??
For several thousand years, the ancestor worship was at the center, and people believed that demons cause disease. Doctors were at the same time ghost-watchers and demon-sellers. Epidemics were as much a work of demons as the permanent wars of the respective rulers.
Acupuncture in Chinese medicine. Picture: photophonie - fotolia Today's TCM has little to do with demon beliefs; Yin and Yang and the life energy Chi are powers, but not creatures. The "correspondence medicine" prepared the ground for today's TCM: not demons, but the radiance of nature is therefore crucial for humans; the microcosm represents the macrocosm. Man must live in harmony with the stars, his food, with heaven, earth, fire, water and air. It is based on Yin and Yang and TCM.
Confucianism also applied this harmony to the social order, that is, the hierarchy of authoritarian China corresponded to the balance in nature. The ruling class at that time represented this medicine as the only admissible one. That's why the Communists initially persecuted the doctors until Mao rehabilitated the survivors.
Healing methods of this TCM are remedies, acupuncture and warming of acupuncture points. Massage and physical exercises such as Tai Ji and Qi Gong are just as much part of this as are nutrition based on the principle of yin and yang.
In Western science, TCM is controversial. The WHO, however, recommends acupuncture for as many as 20 diseases, and research in recent decades suggests, for example, that medicinal plants used in TCM directly kill cancer cells, such as Brucca Javanica and Aconitum Camichaeli. However, anyone who questions the concept of Yin and Yang will not be able to do anything with Chinese medicine.
Yin and Yang literally designate the shady and sunny sides of a hill, expanding the two opposites of all phenomena. Chinese philosophy recognizes two aspects in all things of the universe: the law of unity and opposites: cold-hot, slow-fast, calm-moved or difficult-light.
These opposites are in constant motion; growth in one area leads to a decrease in another. The TCM explains with this increase and decrease physiological processes and diseases. The life of man is therefore a physiological process of movement and change - that of yin and yang. For example, storing nutrient body fluids consumes functional energy, yin increases, and yang decreases. In short, when yin and yang are relatively balanced, the human is healthy; when one thing displaces the other, he becomes ill. The black contains the white, both are mutually dependent. Interactions of the macrocosm take place in the microcosm and vice versa. In addition, Chinese medicine assumes a life force called qi; If western physicians do not recognize this concept, they can hardly engage in Chinese medicine.
Organs in this theory are centers of bodily functions and not anatomical units; Fu organs serve to absorb and excrete food, while Zang's organs such as the heart, liver or lungs build up the body.
Insomnia, for example, indicates a sick heart: the heart controls sleep. When the Yang-Qui comes to rest, you fall asleep. When the Yang starts to flow again, you wake up. Yin deficiency with too much heart-fire manifests itself in irritability, insomnia, a dry mouth, a reddened tongue, but also forgetfulness.
Elevated blood pressure is considered to be excessive liver yang, mental activities such as reflection or anxiety are also associated with the liver. Dizziness or headaches, however, are caused by kidney weakness. According to TCM, the kidneys produce the marrow that flows through the brain. In case of weakness, the kidneys do not produce enough of this mark.
This yin and yang construct generally applies - from colds to leukemia, and from heart failure to shock. Acupuncture, herbal therapy, nutrition and Qi Gong. Chinese medicine wants to prevent diseases. A good doctor in China is a doctor whose patients do not get sick.
Manual therapies include massage (Tuina Anmo)
Manual therapies include Chinese massage (Tuina Anmo), cupping (Ba Guan) and cockroach (Gua Sha). With cupping, cupping glasses create a negative pressure on the body surface, which causes blood and qi to move.
Picture: stockWERK - fotolia On the diagnostic level, classical Chinese physicians had no opportunity for laboratory diagnosis and therefore paid much more attention to visible and externally recognizable symptoms: the plaque and condition of the tongue, posture, facial color and pulse diagnostics. Of particular importance for Chinese medicine is the Leitbahnentheorie according to which the organism is traversed by a system of interconnections. On these are about 380 acupuncture points, which can be specifically influenced by various biological processes. Many other models shaped the physiological and pathophysiological foundations of Chinese medicine, such as the Zang-Fu theory (organ system theory), the theory of the six layers or the five phases of change.
Medicine in China was influenced by Confucianism, Budhdism, Shinto in Japan, and above all Daoism. Dao (Tao) means right way, method or principle. Daoism assumes that there is a principle that permeates the entire universe, an absolute cosmic law. The Dao can not be defined because it means the origin and union of all opposites.
Traditional medicine and threatened animals
For thousands of years, TCM has been using game components to heal diseases - in southern China, almost every species is food and medicine. The importance of these animals in mythology plays a special role. Turtles and tigers are important in China, for example, because they attended the Feng Bird and the Creation Dragon.
Animal species are assigned to the Yin and Yang forces and harmonize with plants, elemental states or minerals. The use of such body parts for TCM today has serious consequences for wildlife. In China, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and Cambodia, the population is growing and the economy is expanding. Firstly, TCM customers are increasing and, secondly, a growing middle class has the money to buy the often-expensive products. Natural remedies in Europe and the US, esotericism and New Age, also require these products. The pressure on already endangered species is increasing, and former common species are disappearing to a dizzying extent.
TCM uses about 1500 animal and 5000 plant species. Animals are particularly threatened when considered strong, such as bears or tigers, as long-lived as snakes, as tough as pangolins or as potent as rhinos and deer. These powers, attributed to the animals, are to pass to man when he eats them.
"Dragon Pills" contain seal pens; The Horn of Saiga Antelopes serves the same purpose as Rhino, and since the end of the Soviet Union, the world population of these animals has also fallen by 90%. Millions of seahorses are drying in the pharmacies of Southeast Asia. Poaching for TCM has become a billion dollar business.
Not only in China itself, but in the Chinese quarters of the world, as well as in Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, Taiwan and Japan are the illegal drugs: pills from the tiger, powder of sloth bear, Indian wild cattle, or the civet cat. Koreans illegally shot bears in Alaska, highly organized gangs killing tigers in India's national parks and white rhinos in South Africa.
The horn of the rhinoceros is said to help against insomnia, anxiety, fainting and convulsions; the musk of the musk deer against cholera, abdominal pain and restlessness; the scales of the pangolin against blood congestion, stiffness and swelling; Seahorses allegedly cure impotence, bladder weakness and debility. Snakes are said to increase potency because their body is reminiscent of a penis. Whether a species is threatened or not does not matter: pharmacies do not differentiate between a common water snake or a rare king cobra.
All TCM companies in Germany reject products from protected animals, as do most TCM organizations in China. But the black market is booming. The musk deer, a deer species, for example, is coveted because of the scent glands of the males. One kilogram of musk brings in China tens of thousands of euros.
Tiger medicine
The tiger is considered a panacea in popular belief in China: his stomach is said to alleviate stomach cramps, his eyes help against epilepsy, malaria and fever, his mustache toothache, his testicular tuberculosis and his Peniz potency problems heal. The fat protects against dog bites, the brain against laziness and pimples, even the feces helps against alcoholism. The bones help against the, according to Yin and Yang, cold disease rheumatism. Moved in parts and sold as a remedy, a tiger brings up to 300,000 euros.
In India, the tiger is sacred, the goddess Durga rides on it. Nevertheless, he was the most popular trophy of the Maharajas and Mughal emperors. In the traditional medicine of India, the Ayurveda, the tiger does not matter. This is probably one reason why the Southern Chinese subspecies of the tiger has been eradicated, while India has the largest population of tigers worldwide. But even that is badly ordered: Serious studies have shown that in Indian national parks only 1500 tigers live instead of 3500 officially stated. Indian corruption and Chinese market go hand in hand. An organized animal mafia poaching the tigers in the reserves of India and supplies to the pharmacies of China, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand.
Around 1900 there were still about 100 000 tigers. First, it caught the smallest subspecies in Bali. Their habitat had to give way to cities and fields, and the prey disappeared. The Caspian Tiger was once widespread: from Turkey to Iran to Afghanistan. Stalin had him persecuted as a "people's pest," and pesticide contaminated cotton plantations destroyed his habitat in the forests around the Caspian Sea. In the 1980s, the last Java tiger died, and around 2010 gene analysis revealed that the last South China tigers in China's zoos were all hybrids. Thus, two subspecies remain in Southeast Asia, the Bengal Tiger, the Siberian Tiger and the Sumatran Tiger. They are all extremely threatened. All in all there are only 3500 tigers in the wild today.
Since 1993, China, South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan have banned any trade in parts of tigers and rhinos. Since the tiger is becoming increasingly rare, poachers provide for replacement: they kill lions in South Africa.
Bears
Bear bile helps in TCM against liver and biliary problems, eye diseases and fever. In fact, it contains ursodeoxycholic acid, which dissolves gallstones. It can also be produced artificially. But according to Jinbou, the doctrine of transmission, the qualities of an animal are transmitted to the sick, and therefore popular demand can hardly be satisfied with a synthetic substitute.
Thousands of Collar Bears live in farms in China to drain the bile. These farms are neither biodiversity nor animal welfare. The bears live in tiny iron racks and the farm operators take the bile juice through catheters. The animals suffer from colic and abscesses, moreover their organism collapses because they need the bile juice for digestion. From pain and irritant poverty, the bears often bite themselves off the paws. Wild catches also serve to "replenish" stocks.
rhinos
Rhino is considered in traditional pharmacopoeias as a remedy for headache, fever and inflammation. In contrast, it never played a major role as a sexual enhancer in TCM. The rhinoceros horn is primarily made of keratin, the substance of hair and fingernails. Keratin from crushed horns, hooves, hair and feathers is used in Europe for hair conditioners, shampoos and perms. Scientifically fulfilled nails chew therefore the same purpose as rhinoceros to take.
All five species of rhino, the Indian rhinoceros, the Java rhinoceros, the Sumatran rhinoceros in Asia, and the black and white rhinos in Africa are in immediate danger of extinction. The last black rhinos are monitored around the clock, the Rangers fight with high tech poachers. They sawed horns off rhinos to make them "worthless," but poachers even killed such animals and stole the stumps; Thieves entered natural history museums and stole preserved rhinos there, and rhinoceros populations are rapidly sinking: around 1900, circa 100,000 animals left the black rhino, today 1,500 are left, and the subspecies recently died out in West Africa; the White Rhinoceros multiplied in private farms in South Africa, the northern subspecies, once widespread in the Sudan and Congo, is represented only in a few copies in two zoos.
The Java rhinoceros is the most threatened large mammal species with probably 30-40 animals, and there are only a few hundred of the Sumatran rhinoceros. Although Indian rhinoceros has a stable population, 80% is concentrated in the Kaziranga National Park in Assam; its survival is due to a highly efficient ranger group and the Assamese, who regard the rhinos as a national sanctuary.
The main importing country for rhino today is Vietnam, from where the horns reach China and the other countries of Southeast Asia. In Vietnam today there are notions that are only marginally related to TCM. The horn is said to heal cancer and prevent the cat after a night of food. It's all about lifestyle: a drink with dissolved rhino powder costs easily $ 1,000, making it perfect for splurge with wealth. An average horn of 5 kilograms generates about 280 000 euros, more than gold or cocaine.
The import, trade and possession of rhino in Vietnam is punished with up to seven years in prison. But that does not deter the rhinoceros mafia, moreover, it is rarely condemned for violations. The black market is largely open: Rhino is sold on the Internet and street shops.
The dying of the turtles
Turtles play a vital role as a witness of creation in the Chinese tradition. At least 114 medications contain turtle shell. The carapace of the soft-shelled turtle, for example, is supposed to heal a fever.
"Turtle shells" are designed to promote the yin, strengthen the bones, stimulate the heart and relieve symptoms. Many believe that turtles increase potency: the neck with the round head, which pulls the turtle back, reminiscent of a penis.
On the spot, turtle is usually turtle and market vendors offer indigenous species such as the Chinese soft turtle. Some species, however, are said to have special healing abilities, are offered under their own name and are accordingly expensive: the three-stripe horseshoe turtle, for example, is supposed to cure cancer, a single one can yield up to a thousand dollars. Today it is "commercially extinct", it is so rare that it is no longer worth looking for and catching it. The traders are avoiding related species, which are now also on the verge of extinction.
Swamp and soft-shelled turtles, which were still omnipresent 20 years ago, are extremely rare today. China imports turtles from New Guinea, the USA and Brazil, from India as well as from Bangladesh. The Indian turtles therefore decreased by 90% in a decade. Today, every fourth species of turtle in the world is in acute danger.
What to do?
One in three inhabitants of the world uses TCM, including 80% of Chinese people outside of the big cities. Sales of TCM medicines are estimated at 6.9 to 23 billion euros. Animal products are widely traded outside the official market. In addition, on the official market mostly finished products are traded while the Volksmarkt puts the ingredients together separately for the recipes.
The government of China acted against species extinction in the pharmacy. Eating endangered animals has meant up to 10 years in prison since 2014; this applies to pandas as well as golden or Chinese pangolins. Anyone who knowingly buys illegally hunted animals can expect to be behind bars for three years.
Alternatives would have to offer medicine in the most populated country in the world itself. It has been developing for millennia and proven in many ways. Using animal parts is often custom, but not a mandatory standard.
Unfortunately, even reputable Chinese TCM doctors often swear by the animal "original" rather than using synthetic remedies; For example, 75% of surveyed healers considered bile to be more effective than artificial ursodeoxycholic acid, and unlike turtles, Viagra really stimulates the erection, so followers of analog thinking rarely believe.
In addition, rare wild animals are not only for medical purposes, but their consumption is also a status symbol. He has always been, but the middle class is growing, and the number of those who can afford such status symbols is expected to triple by 2022. With a population of over 1.35 billion people, this can not cope with any animal species. It only helps a change of consciousness.
Lo Yan-Wo, the president of Chinese medicine and philosophy, specifically opposed treating endangered animals into drugs. For example, herbs are crucial in the pharmacopeias, turtle shell only served as a binder. Instead of tiger bones, bones could be used, instead of the horn of the rhinoceros the horn of the house water buffalo, the musk of the musk deer should also be replaced by artificial specimens like bear bile. Antelope horn and the horn of domestic goats made no difference from a medical point of view. Pangolins, geckos or deer antlers could all be replaced by plants. Until then, some species will probably be less on this earth. (Dr. Utz Anhalt)