Friday, March 25, 2011

Traditional Chinese Medicine March 11, 2011

Blair and I went on one formal tour while she was here. We went to the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Museum and Pharmacy located near Yu Yuan Garden in the scenic "Old Town", which is not truly old, but I digress.

An exhibit in the Museum section.



Items no longer supposedly used as they come from endangered animals.


Oops!


Sorry! I read this after I took my "poto".

Items used in the making of TCM medicines.


A boy made out of ginseng.
Boy, they love their ginseng in China.


Ancient medicine chest

Each drawer held a particular herb.
It was arranged so that plants that have a detrimental 
effect on each other were placed at opposite sides of the chest.


Close up
The drawer pulls are old coins meant to bring good luck.
Cool!


Upstairs in the modern TCM room where they make up the prescriptions.


An assistant read the TCM doctor's prescription and then went to the different drawers for the various herbs. The most-used plants were in plastic basins on the counter. After each ingredient was weighed, it was put in a stainless steel basin. When all the ingredients were assembled, they were dumped onto a piece of paper and wrapped up for the customer to take home. Once home, the customer makes an infusion with the herbs and drinks it, following the TCM doctor's instructions.

Weighing the ingredients




Close up
I have no idea what this one was, 
except that it didn't seem to be as popular as the others.


Piles of paper used for wrapping the herbs.


 Wrapping, an art in itself.





 Blair getting a closer look.


If you don't want to make your own infusion, the TCM Pharmacy will "cook" your prescription for you.
This is one of the contraptions that does the cooking. These machines were on another floor.
Not every one gets to see this room. 
Lucky us and lucky you!


The prescription


Can you make out the steam? 


How about now from this angle?



After the machine cooked the herbs, it packaged the contents in these 
nifty little plastic packages for easy use at home. 


 Closer view of the plastic before it became a package.


On yet another floor

This is where they had the TCM doctors and some 
of the pre-packaged medicines.


Blair waiting to see a TCM doctor.


The examination

The young woman was translating.


Her doctor, himself 72 years old.


The prognosis? 
You'll have to ask Blair, but here's hoping for more years of health and happiness!
What a great way to end her visit to Shanghai.

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