Guest guest Posted May 9, 2003 Report Share Posted May 9, 2003 > http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/126/science/Dried_geckos_bear_bile_and_rhi no_horns+.shtml > > Dried geckos, bear bile and rhino horns > > The market for ancient medicines flourish in China > > By Fred Pearce, Globe Correspondent, 5/6/2003 > > t felt and looked like a large black prune. But you can't be too > careful. ''What is it?'' I asked. ''It's a birth sac, a placenta,'' came > the reply. ''What animal?'' A brief smile. ''Oh, a human. You take it > for women's problems, and to make you more beautiful.'' > > I hurriedly put it back on the market stall. I had heard of women frying > their own placenta for a post-delivery breakfast. But other peoples' > afterbirths? That sounded more like cannibalism than medicine. > > I was in the heart of Hehuachi, the traditional medicines market in > Chengdu, capital of China's Sichuan province. A giant hangar the size of > a couple of football fields was packed with stalls selling herbs and > spices, potions and animal parts of every description. Some of it would > not have been out of place in a Western street market on a Saturday > morning. But there was much that was more exotic. > > There were hedgehog pelts reputed to cure rheumatism, dog's kidneys that > promoted sexual arousal, newts to treat stomach ache, and dried > snakeskins for dunking in wine as a tonic. There were all manner of deer > and antelope parts, including feet and tails, horns and penises; jars of > caterpillar fungus incongruously labeled in English; and boxes full of > tiny crabs and dried sea horses that, the stallholders insisted, would > bring ''youthfulness.'' > > Other delicacies on sale nearby included bat feces, pangolin scales, > seal genitals, the fallopian tubes of frogs, toad venom, cuttlefish > bones, and dried geckos and leeches arranged in rows like chocolate bars > on a counter. > > Hehuachi is but one outpost of a fast-growing trade in traditional wild > medicines that, thanks to freer markets, appears to have no limits. > Based in China, it is spreading around the world. > > Many Westerners have tried to dismiss traditional Chinese medicine as a > witch's cauldron of false remedies and bogus aphrodisiacs. But the truth > is different, said Rob Parry-Jones of TRAFFIC, an organization that > monitors China's trade in endangered species on behalf of groups like > WWF. > > Many traditional medicines have been found successful in epidemiological > trials. Research conducted for WWF at the Chinese University of Hong > Kong has found that both rhino and saiga antelope horn can cure fevers > and convulsions, for instance. And Western drug companies have > synthesized a surprising number of active ingredients in Chinese > medicines for their products. > > A plant used in China to fight asthma contains ephedrine, a stimulant > that is prescribed in the West for the same condition. Likewise, a > 1,500-year-old Chinese treatment for malaria using artemisin, an extract > from a type of daisy called artemesia, or wormwood, is being adopted > worldwide by Western doctors when existing measures fail. > > China's foremost chronicler of the country's pharmacological history, > Cai Jing-Feng of the China Academy of Traditional in > Beijing, is also a doctor trained in the Western tradition. He said the > philosophies behind the two traditions are very different. > > Western doctors generally treat the disease or the diseased organ, while > the Chinese tradition is to treat the whole body to bolster its > defenses. But, as several of the examples above show, the treatments are > often much the same. > > In China, you are what you eat. And more and more Chinese are using > traditional medicines as food. Whatever the possible risks from > overdosing on active ingredients, the prevailing view is that the richer > you get, the more health food you should eat. > > Economists have put the total value of the Chinese medicine market in > wild products at between $6 billion and $20 billion annually, 85 percent > based on plants, 13 percent on animals and just 2 percent on minerals. > > Guo Yinfeng, author of a report for the Chinese government's endangered > species scientific commission, said she met one woman snake seller in > Anguo in Hebei province who told her she could supply a ton of dried rat > snakes from her warehouse without notice. A trader in Qingping market in > Guangzhou told her he sold 60 tons of sea horses a year. > > Guo also polled 13 of China's largest medicine manufacturers, who take > these raw ingredients and turn them into packaged products. They > declared an annual turnover between them of, among other things, 6,000 > tons of flying-squirrel feces, 25 tons of leopard bones, 1,600 tons of > rat snakes, 200 tons of pangolin scales, 500 tons of scorpions, and 6 > million geckos. > > Traditional Chinese medicine has in the past helped protect some species > of plants and animals by encouraging people to preserve their habitats. > But all restraint seems to have gone. ''Now the trade is the biggest > threat to wildlife,'' said Guo's colleague, Xie Yan. > > In February, scientists revealed that poachers had reduced the > population of saiga antelope in Central Asia from more than a million to > just 30,000 in less than a decade - all to serve a Chinese medicinal > market for their powdered horns. The threat extends to plants, too. > Dendrobium candidum, an orchid that is believed to cure hoarseness, is > now so rare that, pound for pound, it costs 12,000 times more than > wheat. > > Both wild magnolia bark (used to fight stress and treat digestive > problems) and licorice (used for coughs, skin infections, and pain > relief) are almost wiped out in China - the latter largely at the hands > of Chinese soldiers making some pocket money by digging up the plant in > the country's northern border region. > > China has responded to some international concerns. Bears are rarely > hunted for their bile, popular as a treatment for gallstones. Instead, > some 7,000 are held on bear farms and ''milked,'' albeit in ways that > have caused outrage among the animal welfare community in the West. > > But sometimes the use of substitutes can backfire. Leopards, now used > instead of tiger bones, are becoming rare. And the recent slaughter of > saiga antelopes in Kazakhstan had its origins in the well-intentioned > suggestions of conservationists that saiga horn was a sensible > substitute for rhino horn. > > Many in the West may recoil at some of these remedies. But as the > Chinese Westernize in many spheres of their lives, their love of > traditional medicines seems to persist. Anyone for a prune? > > This story ran on page B11 of the Boston Globe on 5/6/2003. > ) Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company. > > > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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