There are many Chinese medicinal herbs, but none is as famous as ginseng.
I had the opportunity to visit, with one of my Asian American students, an import-export store in Boston’s Chinatown where they sell Chinese herbs—if one has the proper prescriptions. The front of the store is a gift shop that at- tracts tourists. A room in the back is separated from the rest of the store. We were allowed to enter this room when the student explained to the proprietor, in Cantonese, that I was her teacher and that she had brought me to the store to purchase herbs. We stayed there for quite a long time, observing the people who came in with prescriptions. The man carefully weighed different herbs, mixed them together, and dispensed them.
Figures 10–6A and 10–6B illustrate the interior of a Chinese pharmacy, the drawers containing herbs, and the method by which the herbs are weighed in the preparation of a prescription. The herbs necessary to fill the prescription are laid out on the paper in Figure 10–6A, and the directions for preparing them are carefully given to the patient. In general, the herbs are wrapped in cheese- cloth and placed in a determined amount of boiling water for a determined amount of time. The resulting liquid is then ingested in specific amounts, at specific times each day. The amount of time that the herbs are boiled determines the concentration of the medicine. Thus, the directions for preparation are care- fully followed.
The Chinese doctor who practices in the pharmacy writes the prescrip- tion, and the cost of filling a prescription varies from nominal ($5.00) to quite expensive (several hundred dollars), depending on the herbs that are used.
We asked to purchase some of the herbs that he took from the drawers lining the entire wall behind him. He refused to sell us anything except some of the preparations that were on the counter because a prescription was necessary to purchase any of the herbal compounds that he prepared. Undaunted, we purchased a wide variety of herbs that could be used for indigestion, in addition to ointments and liniments used for sore muscles and sprains.’
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