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by bitzun 711 days ago
Being unable to trust my ability to translate and parse the linked document, what particular traditional chinese medicines mentioned are relevant to the west?
1 comments

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trametes_versicolor#Uses_and_r... andhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matsutake#Uses are two of them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aconitine#Uses is extracted from 川乌 or 草乌. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordycepin is extracted from cordyceps sinensis. 蟾酥 is https://www.erowid.org/animals/toads/toads_health1.shtml. 马钱子 is a commonly used rat poison and human users described it as 'the paleolithic in a bottle': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strychnine#Other_Uses (the only person i know who injected it regretted it)

aside from pharmaceutically interesting compounds, 龙血竭 has been commonly used in the 'west' as a furniture polish for centuries

> the only person i know who injected it regretted it

Knowing of strychnine only as rat poison until today (I didn’t know about the uses in the Wikipedia page) may I ask — what happened to this person?

he's fine, but iirc he said it was the worst pain he'd ever felt. it used to be a common athletic doping drug

the overall summary is that we're not talking about powdered rhino horn here. traditional 'western' medicine contains a mix of treatments that are ineffective (unicorn horn, usually bleeding), effective but dangerous (calomel, aconite, cocaine), and effective and safe (magnesia, willow bark). the same is true of traditional chinese medicine. the things listed here are all effective, perhaps too effective. i've had nightmares about cordycepin ever since i was a little kid studying organic chemistry

Thankyou :)
happy to help!