Today we have another guest post from a member of the group that journeyed to Nanjing this past November to study jing fang with Dr. Huang. Bernd Schleifer is a practitioner from Munich who has an active practice, and weak spot for good books on medicine written in Chinese. ************************************* Reading the Ten Key Formula…
Author Archives: Michael Max
Reading between the lines
There is a section in Comparing Formula Presentations: Five Steps to Differential Diagnosis in the Treatment of Cold Damage on formulas, presentation, and illness. Unlike the way Huang writes, the author of this book writes in a condensed, specific fashion and is very clear about where within the six warp the illness is located. The…
Navigating the levels
If you are regular reader of classicformulas.com then you have a pretty good idea of the value that Dr. Huang places on constitution, formula presentation, illness and the interaction between them. If you have worked with these methods yourself in the clinic, it is likely that it has at times sharpened your clinical eye…
On Excess and Deficiency
One of the first concepts we hear upon walking through the gate of Chinese medicine is that of excess and deficiency (xu虛 & shi實). Deceptively simple at first glance, this is one of the foundations of accurate diagnosis that tends to become more slippery as time goes on and we see patients in the clinic…
Constitution and Formula Scope
Perhaps practicing medicine is much like forest management, fiddling around with the economy of a large developed country, or arranging a 100 table banquet. There are individual issues; the overpopulation of a certain insect, corruption in a key business sector, unrelenting fever, or who should sit next to who. There are hot spot issues, the…
Learning jing fang
Like those magic eye pictures, where when the vision is loosened just so a completely three dimension image appears. Learning to acquire an clinical gaze that is soft enough to take in the entire landscape of a patient’s presentation, and sharp enough to see clearly the shape and structure of dysfunction, is an acquired skill….
Tools of the trade
If any of you have inclination toward reading Chinese, then you probably are familiar with Pleco software. Yes, that is their logo on the iPhone app in the picture. No, it is not yet available. But, from participating in the beta-test I can tell you that if you have an iPhone in your pocket, and…
Why differentiate constitution?
. . I will be taking a group to Nanjing next month to study with Dr. Huang. To prepare and brush up my Chinese I’m going over his lecture notes. They are a treasure trove of clinical common sense and revelation. They also help to illuminate why the Gui Zhi Fu Ling Wan I gave…