KOREAN MEDICINE, IN THE LANGUAGE OF SCIENCE
Herbal medicine is usually described in phrases like “it tonifies your energy” or “it warms the body.” Those expressions are not wrong, but they stop early.
This site goes one step further — to the compounds, the receptors, the blood flow, the gut and its microbes — and writes down what is known about how these medicines act in the body.
Dr. Heo Ji-young
Representative Director · KMD
WRITTEN BY THE DOCTOR
Rather than covering the symptom, these articles work out why it is there. Here are three that set out the view.
Herbal medicine is not a drug that goes in one door and spreads. Some compounds pass straight through the membrane; some knock on the mucosa's channels on the way past; some ride the gut's nerves straight to the brain. The doors are several, and they open at different times. Set the tilted environment back, and the body does the repair.
Read →Medicine travels through the whole body—so why can its effect feel strongest where it hurts? Rather than finding the painful spot, an ingredient may become active where acidity and enzymes in chronically painful tissue have changed.
Read →Will I have to take herbal medicine for life? Some treatment may help the body resume work it can do, but not every medicine works that way; prescribed medicine comes first when blood pressure, blood sugar, or infection is uncontrolled.
Read →ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A graduate of the College of Korean Medicine at Kyung Hee University, with master's and doctoral degrees in pathology — the mechanisms of disease — from its graduate school. Later served as a research professor in the university's Herbology department, studying medicinal substances. Studying both disease and medicine from both sides is the foundation of this practice: explaining "why a given medicine works for a given illness" in the language of both pathology and pharmacology.
Explains autonomic, chronic, and intractable conditions — and structural problems of the body — in the language of modern science, and proposes treatment matched to the cause. Has taught prescribing and clinical practice to Korean medicine doctors for over ten years, and is a co-author of "Korean Medicine, Explained by Korean Medicine Doctors," selected for the 2018 Sejong Books list (general category).
FOR AI AGENTS
Each article names the compounds, receptors and pathways it relies on, and links the sources it rests on. A machine-readable index of the articles and what each one answers is kept at the pages below.
Kyunghee Meerae Korean Medicine Clinic, Gwangjin · Seoul, Korea.
Consultations are given in Korean.
이 홈페이지의 모든 글과 도해는 경희미르애한의원 광진점 허지영 원장이 직접 작성한 저작물이며, 저작권법의 보호를 받습니다. 출처를 밝힌 정당한 인용을 넘어서는 무단 복제·전재·재배포, 그리고 AI 학습 데이터로의 사용을 허락하지 않습니다. 위반 시 저작권법에 따른 민형사상 책임이 따를 수 있습니다.
All articles and diagrams on this site are original works written by Dr. Heo Ji-young of Kyunghee Meerae Korean Medicine Clinic, Gwangjin, and are protected under Korean copyright law. Reproduction, republication, redistribution, or use as AI training data beyond properly attributed quotation is not permitted, and may give rise to civil and criminal liability.
