Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is a traditional medicine in China for 5,000 years. As early as the primitive society, Shennong tasted a hundred herbs. Quality medicine can be understood as selecting seeds to raise grain, and it can also be understood as knowing pharmacology, detoxification and treatment.
Li Mingshizhen compiled Compendium of Materia Medica, which is a grand ceremony for collecting Chinese herbal medicines for four thousand years. The sixth volume is the department of epigraphy, which collected 465,438+0 kinds of mineral rocks, all of which were selected as traditional Chinese medicine. From the point of view of modern science, this list of drugs cannot be explained by current medical science. There are many minerals that are insoluble in acid and alkali at room temperature (100℃), such as gold, horse brain, mica, actinolite, thorn stone and even lead, mercury, realgar, orpiment, arsenolite and cinnabar, which are considered to be highly toxic.
Compendium of Materia Medica
The biggest difference between Chinese medicine and western medicine is that Chinese medicine is a summary of ancient people's experience in treating diseases. It uses physiological signs that are difficult to be quantitatively tested to determine the cause, and uses prescriptions extracted from experience to treat diseases. Western medicine, on the other hand, uses modern scientific test values to determine the cause, so that chemical molecules can be administered through organic chemical analysis values.
/kloc-in the 0/9th century, modern chemistry, especially organic chemistry, flourished, sulfonamides were created for the artificial synthesis of quinine, and tanning blue was created for the synthesis of artificial dyes. It can invade cells, stain different cells and bacteria, and observe the bactericidal ability of drugs under a microscope. Thus creating a precedent for western medicine. Nowadays, many western medicines actually extract the main chemical components of Chinese herbal medicines that can treat diseases, and purify, synthesize or cultivate the components on a large scale by artificial methods, thus inventing new drugs.
Traditional Chinese medicine uses four methods of "seeing, listening and asking" to diagnose diseases and causes, and then treats them according to syndrome differentiation, and uses "monarch and minister" to prescribe traditional Chinese medicine. Western medicine diagnosis, the cause of the lesion is clear, and the prescription is targeted. Chinese medicine uses a whole set of Chinese medicine theories about the relationship between yin and yang, deficiency and excess, five internal organs and five senses, and then uses several main drugs to treat the main causes and several main and auxiliary drugs to suppress the side effects. Therefore, there are often seven or eight or even a dozen prescriptions on the list of traditional Chinese medicine. The dosage of various drugs is ever-changing, but its curative effect is very magical, showing the profoundness and mystery of Chinese medicine culture everywhere.
(2) Minerals and rocks in Compendium of Materia Medica
Li Shizhen said that stone is the core of qi and the bone of earth. Stone gas can be condensed into painters, and stone gas can be liquefied into alum and mercury. Milk marinade changed from soft to hard, vegetation changed from dynamic to solid, and Lei Zhen changed from invisible to tangible. This is his understanding of natural transformation. Finally, he came to the conclusion that although stone is stubborn, it can be created infinitely, so it can also help the country and the people, and of course it can also cure diseases.
He divided minerals used as medicines into four categories: gold-metal; Jade-a beautiful and hard mineral; Stone-a mineral with low hardness; Rock salt-a salt mineral that can be dissolved in water.
1. Golden
There are seven kinds of so-called gold in Li Shizhen, namely gold, silver, native copper, copper ore, bronze, lead and iron ore. According to geological translation, copper ore is chalcopyrite, and iron filings are iron filings spilled while iron is being struck. These metals and gold are insoluble in water, acid and alkali, and their chemical properties are very stable, so they cannot enter all organs of the human body. The reason why the human body contains gold is that gold particles in nature (at least less than one tenth of a millimeter, that is, PM 10) can penetrate deep into body fluids and precipitate somewhere. But people can't get such small particles by hand processing, so they can't be absorbed by the human body, let alone treat diseases. Iron, copper and lead can all be dissolved in acid and enter the human body, but its function of treating diseases is difficult to identify.
2. Jade
Jade, Blue Dragonfly, Coral, Kate Ma, Gem, Mica, Purple ***7 kinds.
Jade, as the ancients said, is now Hetian jade and lantian jade. The former is a collection of nephrite and tremolite microcrystals, while the latter is serpentine. The administration method is to mash rice grains, soak them in vinegar to make a slurry, and then take them. Vinegar is a weak acid. When heating and frying, its temperature is about 100℃. Even if it needs to be heated for 12 hours, it is extremely insoluble in water. Tremolite and serpentine are calcium magnesium silicate compounds, which are decomposed into metal calcium, magnesium cations and silicate anions after entering the body.
Clear fighters, also known as stone beads and green beads. It should be pebbles, which may belong to calcareous nodules and condense into stone beads at the bottom of water-bearing caves. Its chemical composition is calcium carbonate, which is slightly soluble in water and enters the human body in the form of calcium ions.
Coral, the chemical composition is calcium carbonate, and the coral referred to in this book is dendritic coral. In addition, bulbous, cabbage-shaped and horny corals are not among the medicinal corals.
Kate Ma is agate, and its chemical composition is silica, which is aphanitic. Insoluble in water, acid and alkali, it can only be partially dissolved by grinding into powder and heating at high temperature. When taking traditional Chinese medicine, agate is processed into powder and soaked in water.
Gems generally refer to minerals with bright colors and dazzling hardness, mainly garnet series, beryl series and possibly silicified asbestos series. They are all complex aluminosilicate minerals with stable physical and chemical properties, and are generally insoluble in weak acid (folk vinegar) alkali.
Mica is an aluminosilicate mineral of potassium and sodium, and it is insoluble in weak acids and bases (edible acids and bases) at room temperature (100℃). The chemical properties are relatively stable. The usage of traditional Chinese medicine is 500g of salt and 500g of mica. Crushing, putting in a cloth bag, grinding into powder, and then dissolving in water to remove salt, which belongs to internal medicine.
Purple fluorite is soluble in acid and partially soluble in water (rarely). Vinegar calcination can calm the nerves and warm the lungs and uterus. It is used for insomnia due to lung deficiency, dreaminess, palpitation, cough and asthma, and infertility due to palace cold. That is, take a clean purple timely block, cover it, calcine it by light calcination, and quench it with vinegar. 30 kg vinegar per 100 kg purple season.
3. Stone minerals
Cinnabar, namely cinnabar and mercuric sulfide. Processing method of traditional Chinese medicine: grinding into powder, soaking in clear water and boiling; Or wet it with buckwheat ash, cook it for three days and nights, and then dry it with water to powder. Cinnabar is insoluble in water, buckwheat ash is alkaline, and chemical reaction will occur. Take it internally. Cinnabar is a mineral raw material for extracting mercury. The ancients used mercury as the raw material of an alchemist. At high temperature, mercury turned into steam and flew away, becoming Sanxian Pill. After oral administration, it will become immortal and soar, and often die of poisoning.
Cinnabar, vermilion, mercury and mercury powder all belong to the mercury series, which are used for external disinfection (the main component of mercuric chloride) in modern medicine, and are easy to be poisoned by internal administration.
Realgar and orpiment, namely arsenic sulfide. When Chinese medicine is processed, neem should be fried in oil for nine days before it can be used as medicine, which is toxic. The ancients have long known that arsenic is a poison that can kill people. In fact, after frying at high temperature (below 200℃), arsenic and sulfur will mostly volatilize and do not exist in solid, but mineral attached organisms and impurities still exist, so the toxicity has been greatly reduced. Mainly used as an external insecticide.
Gypsum refers to calcium sulfate containing crystal water. Calcite (calcium carbonate, a little soluble in water) is also used as gypsum in Chinese medicine. Before taking it, it needs to be calcined into calcium oxide, that is, quicklime, which is also called mirabilite in Chinese medicine. In fact, gypsum in traditional Chinese medicine includes feldspar in addition to gypsum and calcite. Feldspar is an aluminosilicate of potassium, sodium and calcium, which is completely insoluble in water. Its powder is calcined to form glaze and coated on the surface of ceramics.
Talc, a calcium magnesium aluminum silicate, is insoluble in water and can be taken orally and used externally. When taken orally, it is pounded into powder and mixed into paste, or boiled with other Chinese medicines.
According to the viscosity analysis of drugs, five-color stone grease may belong to clay minerals, such as kaolin, which are mostly produced in rocks rather than in the clay layer of loose deposits. Adding water can soften it into slurry, and the chemical composition should be aluminum silicate mineral.
The chemical composition of calamine or smithsonite is zinc carbonate. Insoluble in water, it can be pounded into powder and mixed into paste for external use when used as medicine.
Stalactite refers to the calcium carbonate deposition in caves, including various types of stalactites, stalagmites, stone curtains, carnations, spring flowers, goose tube stones and so on. Its chemical composition is calcium carbonate, which is insoluble in water and soluble in acid. It can be taken after being processed into powder.
In fact, in limestone areas, groundwater near the surface (which is also called saturation zone in geology because it contains a lot of air near the groundwater level) contacts with CO2 in the air, and makes part of CO2 dissolve in water to generate carbonic acid. Carbonic acid further reacts with calcium carbonate to produce calcium bicarbonate, which is very soluble in water. With the groundwater being taken away, the dissolved rock gradually becomes a cavity, that is, a karst cave. After the local underground water seeps out of the surface or drips out of the cave for a certain distance, due to the change of temperature, pressure and other conditions, calcium bicarbonate will become calcium carbonate and carbonic acid, calcium carbonate will precipitate because it is insoluble in water, and carbonic acid will decompose into water and CO2, and CO2 will escape from the water. This is the process of karst in daily life.
Naphtha, petroleum crude oil. External application can kill insects and treat sores, and oral administration can be made into pills or powders.
Carboniferous, coal.
Lime, usually referred to as quicklime, is composed of calcium oxide, which can generate calcium hydroxide when it meets water, that is, hydrated lime. It can be taken orally after being brewed or boiled with water. Hydrated lime stays in the air for a long time and reacts with CO2 in the air to generate calcium carbonate and water.
Actinolite, amphibole mineral-Actinolite, chemical composition is calcium magnesium iron silicate, insoluble in water and weak acid. Generally, it needs to be calcined in fire and then mixed with water.
Magnetite, that is, magnetite, is chemically composed of iron oxide, which is actually a mixture of ferrous oxide and iron oxide, and is insoluble in water and acid. Take the medicine orally, grind it and decoct it with vinegar.
Xuan Shi is a non-magnetic black iron ore, which is equivalent to black limonite and ilmenite. It is insoluble in water and used as medicine like magnetite.
The chemical composition of ochre is hematite and iron oxide, which is insoluble in water and can only be used as medicine after boiling in water.
Bile, that is, copper sulfate with crystal water, blue-green crystal, is easy to decompose and dissolve in water after heating.
Arsenite, equivalent to arsenopyrite mineral, belongs to arsenite or thioarsenite, contains a small amount of cations such as iron, nickel and cobalt, and is insoluble in water. Boiled with vinegar after grinding, it can be used as medicine and is toxic.
Medical stone is a natural medicinal ore, which contains major elements such as potassium, sodium, calcium, magnesium and phosphorus and trace elements such as zinc, iron, selenium, copper, strontium, iodine, fluorine and metasilicic acid 18. Medical stone is mainly produced in granite, biotite granite, biotite gneiss and other rocks, and also in semi-weathered rocks such as feldspathic sandstone, which may adsorb a small amount of elements beneficial to human body and have special therapeutic and physical effects, but its physical and chemical indexes are still unclear. In the early 1980s, there was a wind of medical stone in China, and its curative effect was artificially exaggerated. Medical stone from different habitats has different curative effects.
The northern medical stone has a strong adsorption capacity for several elements harmful to human body, such as cadmium, mercury, arsenic and lead. It has strong adsorption capacity for chlorpromazine drugs (sedatives and hypnotics) and weak adsorption capacity for barbiturates, which can purify water to some extent.
4. Halogen stone
Salt, namely sodium chloride, is soluble in water and can be used in traditional Chinese medicine.
Bright salt, a huge transparent stone salt crystal or aggregate, is a kind of salt.
The aggregate of bittern alkali, bittern crystal or fine crystal alkali is easily soluble in water.
Hydrate, color like mica, can be decomposed, equivalent to gypsum, or hexagonal plate mirabilite crystal. The chemical composition is sodium sulfate containing crystal water, which is easily soluble in water.
Nitrite, a flaky crystal under mirabilite, is also a kind of mirabilite.
5. Rock or soil
The chemical composition of chalk is calcium carbonate, which forms a soil-like deposit after deposition and is soluble in water.
Loess, clay silt distributed all over Shanxi Plateau, can be turned into mud by adding water.
(3) The medical principles of traditional Chinese medicine, minerals and rocks are in doubt.
Only a few minerals and rocks in Chinese herbal medicine can be dissolved in water, and their effective components can be absorbed by human body, while most of them are insoluble in water or insoluble in water. Although some of them become powder after vinegar treatment and fire baking, most of them are still insoluble in water or weak acid (vinegar). How are they absorbed by human body?
Even if it can be absorbed by people, its therapeutic mechanism is not demonstrated by modern science. Therefore, the pharmacology of traditional Chinese medicine mineral rocks is mostly difficult to understand, and what was the basis for the ancients to incorporate them into drugs has not been explained. Whether minerals are used to treat diseases can be compared with the composition of human body and the effective composition of food. It is found that some oxygen ions or negative ions are indeed beneficial to health, but the treatment is to sterilize or compensate for the lack of nutrients in human body.
Drugs should be sterilized, first, they should enter the cells of bacteria and destroy their physiological functions; The second is to inhibit extracellular media, so that bacteria can not absorb nutrients and starve to death; The third is to enhance the bactericidal ability of human white blood cells and lymphocytes and enhance the disease resistance of human body.
What are the beneficial components of minerals or rocks? What role do they play in treating diseases? Traditional Chinese medicine has no good explanation.
(d) The role of rocks, minerals and chemical elements in medicine.
When people suffer from diseases of the upper digestive tract, barium, namely barite (BaSO4) paste, is usually used to grind it into powder and mix it with water to make paste. During swallowing, the defects of esophagus, stomach and duodenum can be seen on the screen of X-ray machine. Because barite paste can shield X-rays and present shadows on the screen. The original smooth esophagus and stomach wall are destroyed by inflammation, and barium will appear defects when flowing.
When radioactive elements enter the blood, they will strongly emit gamma rays, which will be reflected as bright lines with high transparency on the film. At this time, the change of blood vessel thickness can be reflected, and the tumor area can show the size and shape of the tumor. The bleeding area and non-bleeding area in the brain are shown as shadow and strong light area respectively. Therefore, it becomes a blood tracer, which can reflect vascular diseases, tumors and bleeding areas in the body.
Gamma rays of radioactive elements can kill tumor cells, so they are used to treat cancer. But it can also kill normal human tissues and cells. People often use "chemotherapy" to represent radiotherapy, which not only kills cancer cells, but also does great harm to normal tissues of human body. So later, there was a "gamma knife" treatment method, which used a certain intensity of electromagnetic field to focus scattered gamma rays on one point (equivalent to focusing light) and destroy the lesion. You can also use a mirror to concentrate gamma rays on a line, and use two rays to converge a little to kill cancer cells. Instead of this method, the laser beam is used to carve the Buddha statue on the transparent crystal glass by ray intersection method. In medicine, laser scalpel is used to cut tumors and peel off necrotic tissue in this way.
Schematic diagram of γ -knife structure
1 collimator helmet; 2. the subject; 3. protective layer; 4. Radioactive drilling source; 5. External collimator
The difference between radioactive element tracing and radioactive element sterilization lies in the intensity of radioactive gamma rays. The intensity of gamma rays used for tracing is weak, which basically does not kill normal red blood cells, and the intensity of gamma rays used for sterilization is strong enough to kill cancer cells.
Radioactive elements used in medicine are generally not obtained from mineral products, but from artificial bombardment in accelerators. They are not natural isotopes, but artificially excited isotopes, and the intensity can be controlled manually. Because a lot of electric energy is consumed in the process of preparing isotopes with accelerators, the cost of radiotherapy or tracer therapy is high. For example, the natural isotope of cobalt is Co59, while the therapeutic isotope is Co60, which is an artificial radioactive isotope. It is formed by cobalt in the accelerator capturing another proton. Radioisotope of gold, often used as tracer, is also an artificial isotope (Au80).
Natural radioactive minerals are mainly uranium deposits, and their mineralization is usually related to acid intrusion magmatism, and can also be formed in sandstone in arid areas under exogenous mineralization. In modern times, uranium was enriched in underground water, and acid water was injected into the upstream, and acid water containing ore was extracted from the downstream to extract uranium.
(5) Food, nutrition and nutriment
Generally speaking, people who eat whole grains and vegetables (including fish, meat, poultry and eggs) can meet all the nutrients, minerals and vitamins needed by the normal life of the human body, and ordinary people generally do not need to supplement them. Only during the period of adolescent development and female pregnancy and lactation, the human body's demand for certain nutrients increases sharply, and the general food nutrition needs to be supplemented when it is in short supply.
As the saying goes, "medicine is not as good as food." The human body needs special ingredients, which can be supplemented by specific foods. Food supplement is a low-dose and long-term supplement, while medicine supplement is a high-dose and short-term supplement. General food is always cheaper than medicine, and food can be made into delicious food and brought into the body as a kind of life enjoyment; These drugs are either bitter or tasteless, or coated or capsules. The absorption of the human body is not controlled by subjective requirements, but is the automatic play of the physiological body, regardless of human will.
When people enter old age, all organs of the body are "worn" and aging, and many normal functions are weakened, especially the absorption function of gastrointestinal tract is obviously weakened, and the reduction of inhalation can not meet the normal needs, so symptoms such as calcium deficiency and osteoporosis appear. At this time, additional supplements are needed to make up for the lack of intake.
Now people's living standards have improved, and their diet has changed from full to good. Today has entered the era of pursuing nutrition, but people do not pay attention to satiety, especially with the rise of weight loss and the prevalence of "hunger" therapy, they pay more attention to eating less. Some people even take a fancy to the business opportunities brought by nutrition. The advertisements of nutriments and tonics are overwhelming, the true and false tonics are mixed, and new terms and codes appear constantly, which leads people to go into many dietary misunderstandings. New concepts like "1 to 1 to 1" ionized calcium "and" deep-sea fish oil "confuse people and deceive consumers. Even the chemical knowledge that salt dissolves in water and becomes anion and cation is often boasted. Fish can be divided into shallow water and deep water, and has nothing to do with deep water and shallow water. Shallow water fish in deep sea and deep water fish in pond are completely different concepts. This is a concept of stealing and fooling people. Pure drinking water is also touted as magnetized water, deep water, energy water and raw water in advertisements. In fact, there is no scientific basis for the concept speculation, and even some of them are pseudoscience, for example, timely is regarded as energy stone, and water soaked in insoluble substances such as tourmaline and actinolite is regarded as nutrition.
Many pseudo-experts hold various lectures, eat loach and drink brine to swallow snake gall, and all kinds of compatibility taboos exaggerate the medicinal functions of asparagus, konjac and ganoderma lucidum. Of course, a considerable number of enterprises are irresponsible and add melamine to dairy products, which seriously endangers the health and safety of consumers. However, we should not make things worse, treating many authentic brand-name milk powder in China as poisoned milk powder, thus killing the dairy industry in China, and Chinese people will never dare to drink domestic milk powder again. To this end, there was a rush to buy milk powder from Japan and Australia, which restricted the sale of milk powder in Hong Kong market and the import of milk powder by Shenzhen Customs.
China "Dental Prevention Group" recommended strontium fluoride toothpaste, which was intended to replace calcium with strontium, improve tooth structure and slow down tooth decay. But excessive intake of fluoride is harmful to health. A few years ago, China forced iodized salt to solve endemic diseases caused by iodine deficiency, without considering that iodine deficiency is not national. For coastal areas, edible salt is basically processed from sea salt, and the intake of seafood is also high. These sea salts and seafood are rich in iodine, so there is no need to add iodine to supplement them. If you take too much iodine, it will also cause iodine poisoning. So whether it is necessary to eat iodized salt depends on the situation, and it is necessary to eat iodized salt in iodine-deficient areas. However, it should be avoided in areas with rich iodine content or people who consume more iodine in their daily diet. Foods with excessive iodine can also be regarded as toxic foods. For example, for patients with hyperthyroidism, iodine intake may aggravate the condition, so eat salt without iodine. Because of this, there are also sales in non-iodized salt in the non-staple food market at present.
There are some misunderstandings among people that deserve attention. Most northern residents store pickles in winter. It is generally believed that refined salt is not salty enough, and the use of refined salt will increase the amount of salt and increase the cost. In order to save costs, most residents will choose unprocessed raw salt. Raw salt contains many impurities, which does not meet the hygienic standard of food industry and contains some toxic and harmful elements. If you eat it for a long time, it will not only save costs, but also cause harm to the human body, which is not worth the loss. In short, whether iodine deficiency should be treated according to syndrome differentiation should be treated differently according to the specific situation, and should not be treated equally. Otherwise, it will lead to bad consequences and even lifelong regret.
In the economically developed areas in the east, many families basically don't eat pork for fear of high cholesterol; At large or high-end banquets, pork has disappeared in the past, and aquatic products have replaced meat food. What's more, eat eggs instead of yolk, and treat fried dough sticks (hemp leaves), popcorn and cakes as "junk" food. Too much emphasis on nutrition and credulity to books, internet and TV (mostly illegal propagandists) have led to more and more children's obesity and overnutrition, and many patients have become more and more serious because of insufficient fiber intake. This is the same as overemphasizing that "sun exposure and excessive ultraviolet rays are harmful to health", which leads some people to protect their feet from sunlight even in summer, leading to vitamin D deficiency. Because under the action of sunlight, the human body will synthesize vitamin D. If there is no sunlight, the human body naturally cannot synthesize vitamin D.
Ordinary people are not nutritionists. If they blindly believe it, listen to the preaching of some scholars or even be misled by false advertisements, they will avoid eating it in ordinary food, but they will be malnourished. At present, the number of malnourished children in white-collar families is increasing, whereas in the past, only poor families were malnourished.
So don't blindly pursue or pay attention to a certain aspect of nutrition and go into a misunderstanding. The experience summed up by thousands of years of food culture and eating habits must have its inherent rationality and scientificity. Otherwise, traditional foods, such as dried plums and stinky tofu, will not become drugs? Nowadays, cancer is becoming a killer of human health, and people talk about cancer discoloration. Therefore, many mercenary criminals use XX food as an excuse to cheat and seek ill-gotten gains by unscrupulous means.
The correct way is that we don't have to believe words and deeds easily, and we can't believe false advertisements that have become a common practice in the Internet age. If you only eat beef, milk, eggs, tomatoes, cucumbers and other foods every day, it will inevitably lead to nutritional imbalance, and even serious malnutrition and various diseases. Of course, there are also some special occupations that avoid certain kinds of food in order to ensure the normal work. For example, drama actors dare not eat spicy food to protect their voices; Ballerinas are afraid to eat high-sugar food for their slim figure. These are food restrictions for specific groups of people, so we ordinary people don't have to pay attention to overeating. As long as you can enjoy food, eat comfortably and have fun, you can not only meet the normal needs of the human body, but also enjoy food, which is also a part of life. Why not?
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