Afterglow

Z'ev Rosenberg LAc is Chair Emeritus of Pacific College of Oriental Medicine, San Diego. In private practice since 1983, he is recognised as one of the first generation of practitioners of TCM in the US.

• 1. The Elemental Nature of Chinese Medicine. 2. Ministerial Fire in the Shang Han Lun. 3. Source Qi and Ministerial Fire. Defence Qi, Construction Qi and Ministerial Fire. 5. Thoughts on Supplementing Yang Qi. 6. Autoimmunity and Thermodynamics. 7. Ministerial Fire and Menopause. 8. Bian Zheng/Steaming and Transformations in Neoates. 9. Case Studies. 10. Conclusion. Afterwords. Appendix 1. Appendix 2. Appendix 3.

In Afterglow: Ministerial Fire in Chinese Medicine, Z'ev Rosenberg takes us on a wide-ranging journey that is about so much more than the title implies. When I attended acupuncture college in the 1970s, Ministerial Fire was never mentioned once! Thankfully I had a Korean preceptor who filled in this gap early in my career, but I have never lost my interest in what this term meant to the Chinese scholar physicians who coined it. As Z'ev notes, "Ministerial fire, as an essential principle and force in Chinese medicine and philosophy, has been approached from multiple and sometimes contradictory angles throughout its history." I learned a lot from the citations Z'ev shares, and he provides an impetus for others to expand on his presentation. However, in spite of the title, I think the major contribution of this book resides in its repeated warning that humanity cannot escape the consequences of ignoring the natural laws governing the relationships of Heaven and Earth with mankind. The ecological focus of this text is a clarion call for all of us to rectify our behavior towards our natural environment, lest we forfeit the possibility for future generations to experience truly healthy lives. In his own words, Z'ev tells us towards the end of Afterglow, "This little book is a plea for ecological and physiological sanity in an era of chaos."