Author Archives: Michael Max

End of the road

junkyard daoist-sm

This is it. It’s the end of the road– this road. This journey of words and images, ruminations on medicine, skilled words from other people in other languages about how Chinese medicine unfolds in the clinic, and stories from other practitioners about how to help people heal. This is the end of this chapter. And…

Construction Zone

As a practitioner of Chinese medicine and member of the classicformulas.com community I have some exciting news to share about changes afoot that will dramatically transform and add to the content this web site. This site originated as a blog whose focus was to share some of the pre-publication material from Doctor Huang Huang’s “Ten…

Interview with Nigel Dawes- Part two

Nigel Dawes practices shiatsu, acupuncture and Kampo herbal medicine in New York City. This is the second part of classicformulas.com’s discussion with him about the use of abdominal diagnosis as it relates to the application of classic formulas.  Nigel maintains a busy clinical practice in New York and teaches Kampo herbal medicine. He translated a…

Chai Ling Tang- harmonizing water and qi

by Chris Powell Chái líng tāng (Bupleurum and Poria Decoction) Chái líng tāng (Bupleurum and Poria Decoction) or Sairei-to in Japanese, is a formula that appears in a 1773 text by Shên Jïn-Ào (沈金鏊). His book, Master Shen’s Book on Revering Life, (Shên Shì Zün Shëng Shü 沈氏尊生書), was his work on “revering life” with…

Interview with Nigel Dawes- part one

Nigel Dawes practices shiatsu, acupuncture and Kampo herbal medicine in New York City. In addition to his busy clinical practice and teaching Kampo herbal medicine, he has also translated a major Japanese text on the clinical application of Kampo in modern society. He recently took a not small amount of time to visit with us…

Fu zi and huang lian

The study of Dui Yao, herbal pairs, is an essential aspect of understanding how the function of herbs that are very different from each other can be used together so that they compliment and support each other. This short translation from the Clinical Handbook of Commonly Used Chinese Medicine Prescriptions (臨床常用中藥方劑手冊) published in Taiwan gives…

Learning Chinese

It is not always easy. And while it is generally worthwhile to know enough Chinese to read the medical texts, the process of learning at times will take you down strange alleyways. Here’s one of them.

Zhen Wu Tang to treat prostate enlargement

As more and more people study the classic formulas, dig into that current of thought and begin to gain some comfort with using not small doses of zhì fù zî (Aconiti Radix lateralis preparata); the Fire Spirit current which focuses exclusively on the preservation and restoration of yang has become a topic of interest for…