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Former BMH North Wing from Island School, 2011
Comments
Hm.... a horny photo.......
Hi there,
It's a bit horny for this one. One set of deer horns with the top of the skull and skin visible in the fore ground with other saw-off horn bits. There is also a piece of antilope horn of sort.
A big piece Genseng soaked in some liquid, maybe alcoholic. Two boxes of processed bird's nest.... Unable to make out that thick piece of wood look-a-like right behind the horns. Lots of other boxes of various goods, unable to identify.
T
Hi T
Hi T
I once saw an item with a label 'Tiger penis' on it on display in one of these shops. I guess that would have been very expensive!
Andrew
Re: Animal body parts
Hi Andrew,
Back in those days you can find many preserved animal body parts in those stores. Many of the species had become endangered and some become extincted. Products related to them had been banned one way or the other today.
Generally speaking Chinese Medicine still use quite a lot of body parts of various animals/insects, even ground fossils side by side with herbal ones. Might look like witchcraft to some.
I have concumed my own share of herbal tea for treating common flu with some kind of salted wasp, the discarded shell of some kind of Cicadas...... Might be able to recall some other stuffs later.
T
Hi T
Hi T
As you will know, traditional Chinese medicines have been around for far longer than Western ones. Herbalists still practise in the UK but I believe that they are now subject to more controls to ensure that the medicines that they sell are safe, and Chinese medicine shops have started to open here. I have a feeling that I saw some time ago that Western pharmacologists and pharmaceutical firms are looking very seriously at some of the traditional Chinese medicines to see whether their constituents might be useful in conjunction with or as alternatives to what we have in the West. Under certain circumstances acupuncture is now seen by some Western doctors as a viable alternative to anaesthetics. The 'New World' has much to learn from the 'Old World'. I'm sure that they can gain quite a lot from each other. I still have a small unopened tub of Tiger Balm ointment that I bought in 1958. I have bought several more in more recent years and it is very similar to some of the embrocations (?) that are produced by Western firms. I'm not sure whether ANY of them really work but they don't do any harm!
Regards Andrew