Traditional Chinese Medicine

We all know that China has had an organised society of people able to read and write for 5,000 years.

What we don't sometimes appreciate is the fact that, they have had more than their fair share of inquiring scientific minds at work all this time. This has resulted in a well recorded archive of Chinese medical knowledge which has grown almost independently from other cultural influences and is based on the theory that in nature, all things are possible.

From this well of knowledge has emerged today a sophisticated traditional medical system which relies on the result of a 5,000 year investigation into unlocking the secrets that nature seems to guard so zealously. Hence, we now have a huge pharmacopoeia of medicinal herbs and minerals, the combination of which have resulted in a very wide variety of patent herbal medicines.

In not too distant history, Chinese doctors were paid weekly by their patients. If the patient fell ill, the payment ceased until the patient was better. This method ensured that practitioners regularly monitored their patient's health in an effort to keep them well.

Because of this emphasis on preventative medicine, the Chinese developed a complex system of diagnosis and treatments tailored to the individual's subtle patterns of disharmony (which, if left unchecked, would lead to illness), thus keeping the body in balance at all times and preventing illness occurring. It was also important that the cure itself had no side effects.

In any herbal substance, there could be dozens of active chemicals occurring in a natural form. While the modern scientific approach has been to isolate the directly effective actives and manufacture them synthetically, the Chinese belief has been that the actives evolved in nature side by side for good reason and to separate one from the other would be undoing the work nature has done over millions of years, providing a substance where all actives are naturally compatible.

Thus the ingredients used in Cathay Herbal formulas are as mother nature first designed them. By using age-old methods of decoction and concentration, the harmony and balance of ingredients within each herb is left in place - in a way that only nature can provide.

In the case of pills or tablets, people are often surprised at the number they are required to take. One also has to remember that this is pure herbal matter in a convenient form. The patient is not consuming large quantities of manufactured synthetic chemicals.

Your practitioner is highly skilled in knowing the medicines you need for your condition and the quantities you should take. You can have confidence that you are taking formulas that have been in constant use for a minimum of 200 years and a maximum of 4,000 years. However, if side effects should occur, please consult your practitioner.

How effective is it?

The answer is, these herbal medicines are the basis of a medical system used by a quarter of the world's population. It is a natural therapy which lacks the dramatic impact of some western medicines (which often lead to side effects) but takes the more gentle and gradual approach of assisting the body to treat itself in a wholistic manner so that the root cause of the problem is treated along with the symptoms.