Animal preparations used in Chinese medicine / by Bernard E. Read.

  • Read, B. E. (Bernard Emms), 1887-1949.
Date:
[1939]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Animal preparations used in Chinese medicine / by Bernard E. Read. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    9/24 (page 5)
    technique and scientific knowledge is yearly bringing forth increasing evidence for the real worth of some of these remedies. DOMESTIC ANIMALS Pig's liver. Pig’s liver rich in vitamins A, B, C, D and was recommended in old Chinese medicine for night blindness, beri-beri, scurvy-like symptoms, emaciation and edema.^ Some of these uses were also ascribed to the livers of the ox, sheep, rabbit, and chicken. Sheep’s liver which contains even greater amounts of vitamins A, B and C was used for night blindness and various eye troubles, gingival ulcers and chronic diarrhoea. The last mentioned is so similar to the modern use of liver soup for sprue. Pigs pancreas or sweetbread. Pig’s pancreas or sweetbread was regarded as the source of the three digestive principles. It was given with cinnamon and artemesia for symptoms of sprue. Oral administration of an alcoholic extract was favoured. It is of interest that Boldyrefi in recent years obtained an effect on blood sugar by oral doses of alcoholic extracts. Sheep's eyes. The iris and lens of the sheep’s eye were given for dimness of vision and conjunctivitis. The eyes of the hawk, parrot and mackeral were used for night blindness. Wald in 1934 isolated vitamin A, the specific remedy for night blindness, from the iris of sheep, pigs, cattle and frogs. Ox-bile. The bile from the ox, sheep, pig, dog, chicken, bat and rat were given for night blindness and to clarify the vision. Similar to the modern use of ox-bile that of the sheep and pig were recommended as purgatives. These remedies among 148 others recommended for night blindness suggest some possible rich sources of vitamin A, see Mar’s report, 1936.^ Pig's \idney. This was classed as a saline cold remedy, and if taken too often it was said to lessen the number of children. It was recommended as a diuretic, for chronic diarrhoea, alcoholism. ^ M. A. B. Fixen and M. H. Roscoe, Nutrition Abstracts, 1937-38, 7, 823. ® B. E. Read, Chinese Materia Medica {Peking Nat. Hist. Bull., 1931). ®P. G. Mar and B. E. Read, Chinese Remedies for night blindness {Chin. ]. Physiol., 1936, 70, 273-284).