Snake Oil Sensibilities

There are few things the Chinese seem to take as seriously as their coveted Traditional Chinese Medicineâ„¢.

Though TCM is a complex and multi-faceted health practice, some of it, it needs to be said, is complete bunk.

Walking into any pharmacy here is like taking a step into the hovel of MacBeth’s three witches. I’ve not actually seen newt eyes or frog toes in packages featuring old folks living healthy and rewarding lives, but I’m damn near certain they’re in there.

And it doesn’t stop in pharmacies. If you’ll pardon the pun, it’s boiled over into major supermarket chains as well. I have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that I can, should I need, walk into a Walmart or Carrefour here and grab myself a pack of ground deer antler or dried duck gizzards to help cure whatever ails me.

Here are a few of the more exalted remedies:

• Donkey Skin – Helps women who suffer from low blood pressure and dizziness.
• Tiger/Cheetah Bones – Makes, what else, your bones stronger.
• Snake Skin – Cures a tooth ache (by direct application).
• Cow Tumor – Helps your eyes (I’ll take a carrot, thank you).

And let us not forget bear bile, shark fins and nests made from bird spit.

At some point when you’re stuffing random bits of animals into your face you have to be asking yourself, is there an alternative to alternative medicine?

And fortunately, there is! It’s called science. The concept of understanding the causality of things, not just taking grandpa’s word for it. To be fair, TCM, or rather CCM is no stranger to science, and is in its essence an evolution of medical practices over a few thousand years – just like in the West.

However, the problem now is, when the Communists reinstated CCM (after Chiang and his lot outlawed it for three decades), they standardized it and wrapped it in a box that hasn’t allowed its evolution to continue – particularly important when you consider the amount of medical advancement over the last century.

Now I’m sure there’s a good number of you sitting back and, like my pothead friends in college, saying “Naw naw man, it’s true. You just don’t believe it because that’s what they want you to think…”

And I’m sure you’re right.

I don’t doubt for a second that the edible side of TCM (I’m not going to touch on the needles and hot cups aspects) has some genuine medicinal properties and there’s just loads that Gray’s anatomy could learn from the Taoist mystics.

However, we need to stop sprucing up witch doctor methodology with terms like “preventative medicine” and start answering the hard questions about why these things affect our health the way they do.

Excuse me, I’ve some snake oil cream to go rub on my eczema.