草木春秋

Materia Medica Herbal Textural Research

“用對藥治百病，買錯藥要人命”是衛生署中藥委員會的佳作，也是警語。認識中藥是一件難事，用藥治病更是中醫師必須做到精益求精，藥到病除的功夫。本草綱目，本草備要，中藥學....，等各類有關中藥的書籍，我們都熟悉，還不斷的在翻印再版中。時代在進步，中醫藥在現代化，尤其對於中藥的成份分析，實驗、檢驗更是詳細、確實。對於藥“毒”的問題藥物，更加注意，舊書把藥味分上品、中品、下品，現在我們用藥要注意的問題應是“毒”及“副作用”更重要。最好有“毒”及易生副作用的藥味，盡量少用或勿用，以免病未治好，禍先上身，本文把馬錢子、馬兜鈴等有“毒”性之藥味，用假人性化的寫法，攥成“草木春秋”一文，搏君一笑。

The epigram from Committee on Chinese Medicine and Pharmacy, DOH, said 'Correct medicine cures your disease. Incorrect medicine kills your life.' It's not easy to understand Chinese herbal medicine. Furthermore, as TCM physicians, we must do our best to make our medicine do the trick for the patients. Many TCM textbooks, such as 'Ben Cao Gang Mu (Materia Medica Outline)', 'Ben Cao Bei Yao (Treatise on Herbal Medicine)' and 'Chinese Materia Medica', which we are familiar with, have been reprinted. With the progress of the times, traditional Chinese medicine is becoming modernized in its test and examination procedures, especially for some herbal medicine with drug poison. In ancient TCM textbooks, herbal medicine was usually classified into high, medium and low grades. The drug poison and side effects of TCM herbal medicine are more noticeable issues nowadays. We should use that kind of medicine as few as possible or even stop using them. This study tried to use personification in writing the herbals, such as Ma Dou Ling (Fructus Aristolochiae) and Ma Qian Zi (Semen Strychni), in order to arouse readers' interest.