Shiny things 43/ 2 noses? where's my interstitium?
three recent moments where Eastern medicine collectively rolls its eyes and says "...we been sayin..."
When I lived to Shanghai I went for my share of TCM consults and treatments because that’s what you do.
While I developed an appreciation of TCM, I still can’t have luohanguo (monk fruit extract) without gag-level memories of the TCM potions prescribed, and I heard some properly wild stuff come out of TCM practitioners. I think these were mostly because my Chinese was never good enough to have a proper adult conversation with a practitioner, but still, my two most memorable:
”I have a patient with little brain left after an injury. But he has a good gut, so he’s happy.”
and
“You have the heart of a little girl.“
I was thinking of these TCM practitioners as I tripped over a series of “OMG WHOA discoveries” in western medicine that have eastern medicine practitioners rolling their eyes pretty hard:
You have 2 noses. via pocket. The ‘it book’ of a few years ago goes into extreme depth about how this has been obvious to eastern medicine for millennia.
TCM has been way ahead on the Gut thing, which has been popping off in the west for the last 4-5 years.
WILDEST FOR LAST: the INTERSTITIUM is a new… organ? whoa. Radiolab episode is great (and they call out the ‘well duhhh’ moment from TCM), but the wide-ranging article that spawned this podcast is worth a read. In a fun way, the author makes this ‘discovery’ of a whole new organ all about themself.
Obligatory Christmas links:
Stevie Wonder’s Christmas album is the best. The title track he recorded at 19. What an artist!
Mannheim steamroller is the classic christmas kitsch, but the story behind the band is about as random as you can imagine - it starts with ad execs in Omaha writing a jingle for a regional bread brand …