huangdi neijing (yellow emperor's classic of internal med)

[everything]

have you been reading it? is there an English translation you prefer? what do you think of it? the Q&A format seems odd to me; perhaps I just miss something in the way it's organized. I'd prefer to read something in a sort of "textbook" format that has Q&A at the end.

[yeniseri]

I read it decades ago but there are subtle distinctions that makes it a worthwhile read.
I used parts of it when I took a "Prepared Chinese Medicines" course in the 1980s. The first book was by Ilza Veith

https://www.amazon.com/Emperors-Classic ... 1584&psc=1

A more recent translation was by Maoshing Ni:
https://www.amazon.com/Yellow-Emperors- ... 0806&psc=1

[everything]

I have the second one. He seemed to translate for readability, but I still find it way too abstract (coming from a person who likes the abstract and theoretical).

It's sort of like "how do the seasons affect health?" A: "the yin/yang balance changes and the qi is different."

[yeniseri]

I have stuck to the 2 versions only because translations, despite being in the English language reflects era and experience of the translator.
I do not know the exact date but the difference between modern Chinese and the Chinese of the Classics has changed to such an extent that even the English translation are "problematic".

Ilza Veith's translation is as good as it gets but the nuances are never ending. Enjoy anyway

[Bob]

Never mind

[Bob]

Never mind

[everything]

aside from "qi" and yin/yang and philosophy getting into metaphysics, which is interesting for other reasons...

the herbal medicine part is interesting almost as an entirely separate area. studies can quantify benefits of something vague like "green tea", but when they try to isolate the compounds, it doesn't work for various reasons such as in the below quote. but over time, they can possibly learn more (but possibly not). something about nature (herbs) and a non-statistical but systematically acquired body of knowledge is beneficial yet eludes our modern, stats-oriented knowledge approach. we are also "nature" and more than the sum of the single effect from one "catechin", so perhaps this should be obvious (yet people seem to not understand). the more it's difficult to statistically study, the more some arts people who are math-challenged will change the topic to the philosophical, so perhaps it always has to come full circle.

The major flavonoids of green tea are various catechins, which are found in greater amounts in green tea than in black or Oolong tea [23]. There are four kinds of catechins mainly find in green tea: epicatechin, epigallocatechin, epicatechin-3-gallate, and EGCG [24]. The preparation methods influence the catechins both quantitatively and qualitatively; the amount of catechins also varies in the original tea leaves due to differences in variety, origin, and growing conditions [25]. The preparation of fresh green tea cannot totally extract catechins from the leaves; therefore, the concentration found differs from the absolute values determined through the complete extraction of leaves [26]. Moreover, catechins are relatively unstable and could be quantitatively and qualitatively modified during the time frame of an experiment [27,28]. Thus, comparison of ingested doses in animal studies is not possible because the catechin quantification before administration is often not known.

(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl ... 0catechins.)