The Doctors at Total Wellness Centre often prescribe Chinese herbal medicine to our patients. The herbs are often prescribed in their raw form and must be cooked. In addition, concentrated powdered herbs are available. Some of the herbs have a slightly bitter flavour, but as the amount injested is quite small, most patients tolerate them quite well. By closely adhering to the recommended herbal dosages, a patient can greatly augment or enhance their course of treatment. Please read the cooking instructions for further detail.

We do not store Chinese herbal products onsite. Each prescription is unique for each patient and must be prepared only after careful consultation with each patient. In addition, to ensure freshness and to reduce odour (large quantities of herbs can be pungeant), we only have the day's herbs onsite.

Total Wellness Centre has assembled an herbal reference guide of most commonly prescribed herbs.

History of Chinese Herbal Medicine

Chinese herbal medicine has great antiquity, with therapeutic roots extending back to Zhou Dynasty, late Bronze / early Iron Age at about 2500 to 3000 years ago.

The earliest existing evidence of emerging herbalism in China comes from two graves from the Han Era at 202 BCE to 220 CE. In 1973, the grave of an Han aristocrat was found at Mawangdui in Hunan Province. This exciting find included valuable medical data written on silk scrolls. The herbal literature included reference to 247 substances that were used by these early people for many different illnesses. The body had been placed in the grave in 168 BCE. This means that the medical information is well over 2000 years old and is the oldest existing therapeutic material.

In 500 CE, the first extensive materia medica or compendium of herbal substances was published. It was the work of the Daoist adept Taohong Jing and had 364 entries.

By 1596, the Ben Cao Gang Mu of the Ming medical literatus Li Shizhen (1518-1593) published three years after his demise, a Grand Materia Medica containing no less than 1892 herbal entries. In the succeeding centuries of the Imperial Era, Chinese herbal medicine continued to develop. Despite the temporary setbacks incurred following the collapse of the Manchu Dynasty in 1911, it remains on equal footing with western pharmaceuticals in China today. Lately, Chinese herbal remedies have received attention from pharmaceutical researchers, and have begun to be prescribed in greater numbers outside of China.

For more information about Chinese herbal remedies, please feel free to contact us.