Itching - Chinese Medicine explanation and treatment
Itching, according to Chinese Medicine may be caused by external wind, hot or cold, or sometimes internal wind. A Chinese Medicine practitioner will prescribe Dittany bark, Puncture Vine fruit and Broom-Cypress fruit for itchiness.
In mainland China, doctors also use snake skin, because a snake is a cooling and animal, and therefore good for people who suffer from acute itchiness. Snake skin, like many of the other ingredients in the traditional Chinese pharmacopoeia and is not a remedy which is used in this country. It has a number of applications in the Far East, including treatment for arthritis, a snake lives in water and damp ground and does not suffer from its lifelong exposure to that environment. Therefore Chinese Medicine theory states that there must be components in its body which protect it. Many ingredients used in Chinese medicine are banned from import in this country and some of them are being prohibited from use in mainland China. Rhinoceros horn and tiger bone have now been banned there. Chinese Medicine practitioners here have hundreds of herbs at their disposal which are usually far more effective substitutes.
Professor Song Ke
