Who discovered Chinese herbs? Chinese legend had it that many
millenniums before Christ, there lived five great emperors in
China, the Emperor of Fire who had invented fire for heating and
cooking, the Emperor of Fishing and Hunting who had taught the
Chinese people how to fish and hunt and to raise livestock, the
Emperor of Nine Needles who had invented nine kinds of needles for
use in acupuncture, the Emperor of Cookery who had taught the
Chinese people how to cook foods and prepare meals, and the Emperor
of Agriculture who had taught them how to cultivate land and raise
crops. It was the Emperor of Agriculture who had directed the
Chinese people to collect herbs and use them to heal ailments. A
Chinese classic entitled, the Huai Nan Taoist written jointly by a
number of authors and published in the West Han Dynasty (209 25
B.C.) stated, "The Emperor of Agriculture had tasted one hundred
medicinal plants to determine their effects and drunk water from
fountains to see if it was sweet or bitter, in order that the
people would avoid those which were bad and take those which were
good for them. In the middle of doing this, the Emperor of
Agriculture had been poisoned seventy times each day." Thus,
Chinese herbs have been used for treatment of diseases for
thousands of years in China; it dates back to the very ancient
period of Chinese history when the Chinese people were still living
in the Stone Ages. The use of natural plants for the treatment of
diseases was originated from the necessity of life, because the
Chinese people, while living in the primitive environments, had to
cope with many problems of life, including the attack of diseases,
such as cold, stomachache, and burns or injuries, etc. It is
commonly believed among the Chinese people that herbs were
initially discovered in China in the process of gathering plants
for eating as foods; when a given plant had proven good and
eatable, it became a food; when it had proven harmful to their
health, it came to be known as poison, when a plant had proven
effective for the treatment of disease, it came to be known as a
herb. Thus, there were three types of plants, foods, poisons, and
herbs, but the distinction among them had not always been clear
cut, as some foods could also be used as herbs and vice versa, and
some poisons could also be used as herbs and vice versa. This is
why there is a popular Chinese expression, "Foods and herbs are
interchangeable," and there is also a Chinese saying, "Poisonous
plants are herbs." The medicinal plants that were first discovered
and used as herbs were mostly related to the diseases of the
digestive system such as Dahuang (rhubarb, radix et rhizoma rhei)
which is an effective laxative and lilu (black false hellebore,
rhizoma et radix veratri) which can induce vomiting. Another
category of plants discovered at earlier stages were poisons for
animals, such as chicken poison (monkshood, radix aconiti
praeparata, fuzi), fish poison (yuanhua, flos genkwa or daphnis
genkwae), and wolf poison (langdu, radix euphorbiae fischerianae).
But although such herbs were believed to have been discovered
first, they were by no means considered as most important herbs as
time went on, because the Chinese had gradually come to realize
that the most important herbs were those which could assist the
body in a positive way and such herbs have been called herbal
tonics ever since, and they may also be called immunogenic herbs to
enhance the body's immune system.
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