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The Eastern Philosophy @easternphilosophy.bsky.social · 15/11/2024

“Treating an illness after it has begun is like suppressing revolt after it has broken out. If someone digs a well only when thirsty, or forges weapons only after becoming engaged in battle, one cannot help but ask: Aren’t these actions too late?”

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The Eastern Philosophy @easternphilosophy.bsky.social · 15/11/2024

“In the old days the sages treated disease by preventing illness before it began, just as a good government or emperor was able to take the necessary steps to avert war.”

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The Eastern Philosophy @easternphilosophy.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

Speaking against people who say “I have no knowledge of it but I suspect it’s useless”?

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The Eastern Philosophy @easternphilosophy.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

It’s an herb used in traditional Asian medicine with a long history of use. It is a component in many formulas for women including for infertility and menstrual pain.

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The Eastern Philosophy @easternphilosophy.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

If you don’t know anything about it, maybe don’t speak about it.

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The Eastern Philosophy @easternphilosophy.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

12/ Busschof’s highly detailed account of Moxa in his book “A New Way of Treating the Gout” inspired a wave of Western interest in this herbal therapy that has not been surpassed to this day. (Busschof’s 1676 book is available for free online: quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A3071...)

quod.lib.umich.edu

Two treatises the one medical, Of the gout and its nature more narrowly search'd into than hitherto, together with a new way of discharging the same / by Herman Busschof ; the other partly chirurgical...

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The Eastern Philosophy @easternphilosophy.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

11/ that it must have another cause that was not yet understood. Because of this and accounts of other contemporaries in the 17th century, Moxa became the “talk of the town” in Western Europe, especially popular as a treatment for gouty arthritis which was common among privileged men of the day.

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The Eastern Philosophy @easternphilosophy.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

10/ permanent cure would have been almost unimaginable for Europeans. The Chinese herbal treatment also seemed to have a strong impact on Busschof in other ways: after experiencing its remarkably efficacy, he wrote that he even began to question accepted European medical theory on gout, concluding…

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The Eastern Philosophy @easternphilosophy.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

9/ a sweet sleep... awaken'd towards evening in very good health and in her right wits, without ever after relapsing into that grievous fit of madness again.” During an era where madness was equated with moral failing and patients were bled, blistered, and purged, this gentle, non-invasive, and…

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The Eastern Philosophy @easternphilosophy.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

8/ for a local practitioner who treated Ursula with Moxa held close to a series of acupoints along the Du Mai channel (known for their ability to calm the spirit and relieve insomnia), Busschof recounted that following the treatment “this poor mad creature, to the admiration of us all, fell into…

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The Eastern Philosophy @easternphilosophy.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

7/ and his seizures also never returned. In another case, Busschof describes how moxa was even effective in treating mental illness, after his slave Ursula was overcome by “such a fit of Madness, that at first we knew not what to do” following an encounter with a drowned corpse. After sending…

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The Eastern Philosophy @easternphilosophy.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

6/ were seen by skilled European doctors, who had exhausted all possible Western treatments to no avail. In one case, a boy was suffering from a swelling above the knee, which Busschof treated with Moxa. Afterward, “all pain being vanished, the youth instantly walked without any inconvenience”…

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The Eastern Philosophy @easternphilosophy.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

5/ raising any blisters, or causing any after-pain; whereupon all the pain of the Gout vanish'd.” This is significant since Western medical treatments of the time were often painful or deeply unpleasant, including purging, bleeding, blistering, and vomiting. Busschof also mentions patients who…

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The Eastern Philosophy @easternphilosophy.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

4/ such a remedy.” However, when he had a severe flare-up of gouty arthritis, he decides to try Moxa, writing that the entire treatment was completed in half an hour and that the discomfort was so minimal that he did not complain at all. Furthermore, he wrote that the treatment was done “without…

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The Eastern Philosophy @easternphilosophy.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

3/ innovative and superior to existing European treatments due to its fast efficacy and painlessness. When he first learned of moxa, Busschof wrote that he was so fearful of the potential pain of a treatment that he initially refused it, “out of an apprehension of pain that must needs accompany…

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The Eastern Philosophy @easternphilosophy.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

2/ He suffered from a disease (gout) which could not be cured by conventional European treatments. After Western treatment failed, Moxa was used and quickly and effectively cured them. Busschof wrote a book detailing his and other patients’ experience with Moxa, and positions Chinese medicine as…

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The Eastern Philosophy @easternphilosophy.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

What did early Europeans think of Chinese medicine when they first encountered it? One of the earliest detailed accounts is from 1676 by Herman Busschof, a Dutch missionary in Batavia (Jakarta) about a Chinese medical treatment called Moxa, which involves burning dried mugwort sticks over acupoints…

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