Interesting Internet Intersections: a medicine chest, a treasure trove and endless pearls

I come across interesting resources almost every day, both sent to me by readers and stumbled upon on my own.  I always mean to add them to my resources page, but I’m hoping to redesign that whole section to make it easier to navigate so I rarely add anything new.  I’m going to work on posting a few of those choice links each Saturday.  As I generally hate link posts (redundant, poorly constructed) I’m going to do my best to provide real value for you folks.  Let me know in the comments if it’s a helpful service or if you’d rather I avoid it in the future.

1. UK Traditional Medicine wisdom repository, Medicine Chest.info:  Someone associated with this site sent me a link months ago, and I simply didn’t have time to review it.  I think what Channel 4 is attempting here is fantastic.  It’s a site where folks anywhere (well, anywhere with an Internet connection) can submit traditional medical wisdom and discuss it with others.  While, of course, there is bound to be a lot of silliness and pointless redundancy, I think in general the idea is sound.  Looking through, I found a few interesting tips that I’d like to investigate further.  On balance, I think the preservation of folk medical wisdom is an important endeavor.
2. Holistic Direct’s Health and Wellness Blog list:  Now, while this might be a little self serving since I’m on the list, I do think it’s a great collection.  The layout of the site is a little jarring and I can’t say much for the rest of the sections, it is a gem of a collection of great sites related to natural medicine.  Worth a look through.
3. Website for Heiner Fruehauf’s new line of herbal products, Classical Pearls.  As you may know, I’m not a huge fan of prepared herbal medicines (patents, etc.)  However, I understand the need for them.  Further, when produced responsibly and prescribed by a Classically minded physician, they can certainly be a valuable part of any patient’s healing process.  Heiner Fruehauf, founding Professor of NCNM’s Classical Chinese Medicine department and one of my most respected mentors, has recently launched his line of herbal products called Classical Pearls.  I had the opportunity to talk with Dr. Fruehauf about the Pearls and I left feeling that these are probably the best prepared herbal medicine products on the market.  He has overseen the product creation carefully, being sure that the ingredients are responsibly sourced and prepared mindfully.  He will be hosting seminars in the Portland, OR area to discuss his herbal approach as well as introducing these products – I encourage you to attend if you are able.

One more note:  On the right side of the blog, on the inner sidebar, you can see daily updates from me through the micro-blogging services Plurk and Twitter.  I may eliminate one or the other in the near future, retaining only the one I prefer.   If you want to know more about micro-blogging and why it’s interesting, you can read about it in the Wikipedia micro-blogging article or read an interesting editorial about Twitter by Darren Rowse, the original Problogger.

Thanks everyone!

Eric

Tagged as: Blogging, folk medicine, heiner fruehauf, internet, links