From the blog of Terry Fox, L.Ac.:
"Rx. Lithospermi / Zi Cao - this herb relieves Toxic Fire, Cools the Blood, and encourages progression of rashes. Rx. Angelica Sinensis / Dang Gui – Tonifies Blood, Moves and Harmonizes blood, Disperses Cold and alleviates pain. Resinae Myrrh / Mo Yao - Moves Blood, Dispels Blood Stasis, alleviates pain, relaxes sinews, promotes movement of Qi, reduce swellings, and generates flesh. Sm. Bruceae / Ya Dan Zi - Clears Heat and Expels Toxins Nidus Vespae / Lu Feng Fang (Wasp Nest) – relieves Toxicity, Expels Wind, alleviates pain, and Dries Dampness Rx. Glycyrrhizae / Gan Cao – Clears Heat & Toxic Fire, alleviates pain, stops spasms, Harmonizes & Moderates characteristics of other herbs, and is an antidote for Toxicity The herbs above are the ones most commonly found in Purple Cloud Ointment. Of course, each practitioner may add or subtract herbs from this formula to create their own version of the ointment. And thus, they can tailor it to their patient’s specific needs. I personally prefer to add Coptidis/Huang Lian and Rehmannia/Shu Di Huang. Huang Lian works to Drain Fire and relieve Toxicity. The Shu Di Huang helps to Tonify Blood and Nourish Yin." Terry sells both Purple Cloud Ointment and San Huang San ointment (shop link also available on the supplies page). "Ca.1890 large albumen print. Photographer unknown. Titled in the negative as 962 CURING THE SICK WITH FIRE." Posted on Flickr by Okinawa Soba. Some Rights Reserved.
" A beautiful, delicate brush drawing by Utamaro. Utamaro is one of the truly great Japanese artists of his day, possibly the greatest. This drawing is a preparatory sketch done prior to the making of a print. As a preparatory sketch you can see little of the detail that would be added later either by the artist, his assistants or the printer. The woman is applying burning moxa, a herb, to her feet to assist poor circulation. Moxa was a Chinese medical practice that found favour in Edo Japan." As found at the Toshidama Gallery website.
Excerpted from www.oq83.jp:
"If you practice rolling with the moxa, your rolling technique becomes excellent. Referring baseball, I would say the high quality moxa is like metal bat, and the moxa is like wooden bat (You have to hit the ball at pinpoint = you can't cheat on wooden bat). When your technique isn't good enough, you can't roll well with the moxa... The lowest qualifying line of Ohsaka Okyu course is able to roll and burn 200 cones / 10 minutes within 2 months. a) practicing every day 30 minutes (one incense) for 2 months 400 cones x 30 days x 2 months = 24,000 cones b) Let's say you can roll 300 cones from 1g of moxa 24,000 cones / 300 cones = 80g *The size of cone is Fukaya Kyu diameter 2 x height 8mm" J Acupunct Meridian Stud. 2009 Dec;2(4):273-9.
Thermal properties of direct and indirect moxibustion.Yi SH. SourceAcupuncture and Meridian Science Research Center, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Korea. [email protected] Abstract Moxibustion therapy chiefly utilizes heat generated by the combustion of moxa. Therefore, understanding the thermal properties of moxibustion is essential when studying the mechanisms involved in moxibustion therapy. Therefore, we measured temperatures of direct and indirect moxibustion. For indirect moxibustion, moxibustion on garlic was used. To determine the influence of the environment on moxibustion, we applied airflow of 0.0-0.8 m/s. An increase in the airflow caused a concomitant increase in the maximum temperature of direct moxibustion, from 160 to 300 degrees C and the time duration was reduced by half. However, the maximum temperature of indirect moxibustion demonstrated the opposite effect, with the temperature decreasing from 45 to 40 degrees C. This is attributed to the upstream airflow, which indicates the importance of the air inside moxa. For indirect moxibustion using garlic slices of different thicknesses, we found the optimum condition for the buffer layer of a garlic slice. The maximum number of consecutive moxibustions using one garlic slice was three. These results are consistent with traditional methods. This observation illustrates that the importance of garlic slices in modulating the combustion heat and proper thermal stimulus to the patient. Copyright 2009 Korean Pharmacopuncture Institute. Published by .. All rights reserved. PMID: 20633502 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] How does this compare with your experience? Will it change the way you apply moxibustion? |
WhereforeA moxibustion resource for Asian medicine and bodywork practitioners. For informational purposes only. Categories
All
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought."
Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) "Sawada Ken (1877-1938) stands out in recent history as one of the most skilled and famous practitioners of acupuncture and moxibustion. Few know that he used moxibustion almost exclusively, never having acquired an acupuncture license. Nevertheless, Sawada's approach to treatment has been widely emulated by Japanese acupuncturists."
- Japanese Classical Acupuncture: Introduction to Meridian Therapy by Shudo Denmei, Translated by Stephen Brown "Some relatively modern Japanese moxibustion specialists, such as Isaburo Fukaya, who practiced for over sixty years, Takeshi Sawada, who inspired a whole generation of practitioners with his uniquely brilliant and powerful treatments and Seiji Irie, the leading proponent of Fukaya's style, studied the Chinese classical literature extensively and many of their techniques derived from their study of the classics."
"Toward the end of his sixty years of practice, Fukaya wrote more than ten volumes almost exclusively concerning the use of moxibustion and little, if any, mention of acupuncture." Excerpted from Japanese Acupuncture: A Clinical Guide by Stephen Birch and Junko Ida |